


the hanged man

by exolliarmus, illinois_e



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: (kind of), Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Enemies to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, Slow Burn, Smut, at least I think it's light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-01
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-22 09:32:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11964621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exolliarmus/pseuds/exolliarmus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/illinois_e/pseuds/illinois_e
Summary: Future plays itself in cards Jongin and Sehun never learned how to read.(or: where a dark mark is etched on the inside of jongin’s wrist and sehun has a dinner with the inevitable)





	the hanged man

**Author's Note:**

> this took me almost 3 months to write, and, while i think there were a lot of things i could've done better, overall i'm pretty happy with the final result. i also couldn't stand to work on this anymore (i mean, 3 months. it was tiring). for the prompter: i really hope you like the fic! it was a beautiful prompt and i'm hoping i did it justice. for f., my beta: this would've been a mess without you.
> 
> (also now properly formatted for a Better Reading Experience)

> **v.** five of swords
> 
> _— june 5th, 1998_

 

The air was unbearably cold for summer, Sehun mused as he rubbed his hands against each other. He hoped that the action would make him warmer somehow, even though he knew it wouldn’t.

It was fitting, in a way—Courtroom Ten couldn’t be anything less than deadly cold with all that took place inside it. Not with its black stone walls devoid of any kind of decoration, not with the leveled benches full of quiet people and somber faces, not with the Wizengamot sitting high and mighty above them, and absolutely not with the dementors gliding slowly back to the dungeon door after leaving their prisoner in the Accusation Chair.

“You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law,” the voice of Kingsley Shacklebolt resounded in the room, like a thunder ready to shake them, “so that we may pass judgment on you, for the crimes committed in the behalf of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named during the period of the Second Wizarding War, in which you confessed to work at his services as a Death Eater.”

In the center of the room, the man looked at Shacklebolt’s eyes and did not waver, unafraid of what was going to happen next; unafraid or uncaring, Sehun couldn’t say. The sentence for following Voldemort had always been known by everyone—and still it didn’t stop the flocks of wizards that chose to ally themselves with him.

“You stand here accused of the undiscriminated use of both the Cruciatus and the Avada Kedavra curses on innocent muggles and muggleborns alike. Do you have anything to say in your defense, Kim Jongin?”

Sehun flinched when one of his nails pierced the skin of his hand. He didn’t even notice how strongly he was closing his fists, not when he was screaming internally at himself for coming to the hearing when everyone advised him not to.

Self-preservation was never his biggest forte.

With his wrists bound into chains and dressed in the same robes he was using when Sehun last saw him, now tattered and heavy with dirt and blood, Jongin sat on the middle of the room like he was still at Hogwarts, pretending to pay attention to Professor Trelawney and her teachings on how to predict someone’s future by reading leftover tea leaves. His silence was all the answer Shacklebolt and the Wizengamot needed.

Sehun wanted to run away and scream and burst, but he promised to Chanyeol he would get through the end of the hearing in one piece.

“I now ask the jury,” Shacklebolt continued, his tone leveled and calm after judging so many people since the war ended, a little more than a month before, “to raise their hands if they believe that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban.”

Countless hands raised, pointing to the sky as if that was their path to salvation, the most righteous thing they could have ever done: send the killer to the prison, where the Dementors will slowly consume him from within, savoring every bit of his soul until he’s nothing but a madman pleading for the kiss of death, as he deserves. Sehun’s hand stayed in his lap, unmoving — too scared to tremble —, his fingers calloused by the many times he had to brandish his wand to kill in the last months.

He imagined Jongin’s were the same, and by the same reasons, albeit their motivation was not the same.

“Let it be done, then. You, Kim Jongin, for the heinous crimes committed against fellow wizards and muggles, is hereby sentenced to a life sentence in—”

“ _Wait!_ ” someone screamed from the audience, standing up while the whole room filled with deadly sentence. Only seconds later Sehun noticed it was him. What was he doing? _What was he doing?_ “I have something to say.”

Shacklebolt’s eyes opened wide in surprise, but he nodded after a few seconds of hesitation. What Sehun didn’t see, though, was that Jongin had turned over to look at him, eyes also wide open, but this time, in fear.

“I think I deserve a say in all this, don’t I? Since I’m the one who captured him.” And Sehun still remembered that day, a month and a half ago, and being optimistic, he would remember it for many years still. “Then, I want— I wish to plead an alternate sentence for the defendant.”

The murmuring that went through the courtroom filled his ears, growing louder and louder until Shacklebolt cleaned his throat, unsure of what to do. “Sehun, I understand your feelings on what regards this prisoner, but I would have you to know—”

“If you understand my _feelings_ , hear me out then! I brought him here, for you, beaten and chained, didn’t I? And he wasn’t the only one. So if you have even the smallest flicker of gratitude for what I’ve done, for what I _gave_ of myself for this war to be won, then let me have this,” he begged, face contorted in affliction while he had to shout to be heard amidst the whispers, the judgmental stares, the tsking sounds coming from old men’s mouths. “Leave him with me. House arrest. I will send you a letter every day if that’s what it takes, I’ll tell you what he ate for breakfast and lunch and dinner, but please, I’m begging you, if the other alternative is throwing him there with those… Those _things_ , then it’s better if you just kill him already.”

He sat again, breathing as deeply as he could to refrain the vomit that threatened to come up through his esophagus as the world spinned around him, the weight of his words coming to crash at his back like a elephant, and still not as heavy as Jongin’s eyes fixed on him, brown irises filled with, as Sehun already expected, disappointment.

“Very well. I do believe you know just how dangerous this prisoner is, Sehun, and as such, I believe you’re only asking for this because you know you’re strong enough to take up this responsibility,” Shacklebolt said, his voice soothing like he was talking to a child—and in some sense Sehun was, still, a child. As was Jongin. “Under my powers as the Minister of Magic, let it be said that the defendant Kim Jongin is therefore sentenced to house arrest in the Oh’s residence, for an indefinite amount of time, which will be judged by his caretaker, Mr. Oh Sehun. This hearing is done.”

As he sighed, Sehun didn’t fail to notice that Shacklebolt did not ask for the jury’s opinion a second time, knowing very well that he would meet much more resistance than support. One by one, the wizards left the courtroom, shaking their heads in disapproval, blaming the fickle heart of the youth—and forgetting that was that same youth who fought for them, who bleed for them, and, in a sense, died for them too.

Shacklebolt was the last to leave the room, whispering quick words in Sehun’s ear, amongst which was an invitation to a meeting later, where they could establish the rules of this particular case they just created. And then, when he filled the corridor along with all the others, there were only Sehun and Jongin left, like all the times in school they spent the night watching the stars in the Astronomy Tower.

Those boys, however, hadn’t killed anyone.

Sehun walked to the middle of the room, from where Jongin had’t moved, tracing the metal of the chains with the tip of his finger, the crackled nails visible from afar, along with the smear stuck to his face. He didn’t flinch when Sehun touched his shoulder lightly as a feather, only to regret it seconds later and come away with his fingers dirtied by a month worth of dust.

Jongin was a criminal, a murdered, a betrayer, and still, standing face by face with him for the first time after that day, Sehun felt as if he was the smallest, most insignificant man in the world.

“Let’s go home,” he said, trying to keep his tone level even as Jongin’s eyes raised to meet his, devoid of any expression. Just dead brown over white.

There wasn’t any place in the world Jongin could call his home any longer.

 

* * *

 

> **xix.** the sun
> 
> — _april 19th, 1995_

 

In almost seven years of school, no one cared to explain to the students why, in a magical castle with magical portraits, hidden passages and a fucking poltergeist, there wasn’t anything that even came close to resemble an elevator. Why, when you could have a hundred and forty two staircases instead?

Sehun took the stairs down two steps at once, even with his mother's voice nagging at the back of his head, telling him that he would end up falling. What his mother didn't knew was that if he fell in the stairs leading to the Divination classroom, he would arrive at the bottom already dead.

That wasn't something he liked to think about while potentially risking his life. Also, it wasn't his fault that Professor Trelawney suddenly decided that she needed to talk to him after he showed her his cards on that day’s lesson on cartomancy. By the way her eyes bulged when Sehun showed her his hand, the eight of cups, the three of swords and the tower weren’t the best cards he could have chosen. _Don’t run away as soon as the class ends,_ she said. He wanted to have an opinion on the matter, but alas, he did not pay attention to a minute of the class, too occupied observing heavy-lidded eyes and a penchant for yawning at the worst moments.

The three of swords? Heartbreak. The eight of cups? Disappointment. The Tower? Tragedy! Trelawney pursed her lips so much they turned white over her teeth and, for a fleeting moment, Sehun was scared, too, of the things that were to come, of what the future might bring for him, of the mysteries destiny hid under its mantle.

And then, as she started babbling about what was possibly the greatest shipwreck of his life, Sehun remembered he didn’t even believe in divination.

Cursed or not, the fact was that her most important talk left him late for Potions, and, as Snape didn’t seem to like him, he preferred not to push his luck with him, much less to read tarot cards or look into crystal balls—which explained why he was running for his life in that exact moment, even if he risked to break a few bones in the process.

After reaching the dungeons, Sehun darted through the hallways. With his clothes disheveled and hair flying in every direction possible, he thanked the heavens that no one seemed to notice a slytherin running as if there was an acromantula in his step.

No one, at least until he finally reached the classroom doors. No one, of course, besides Kim Jongin.

“Sehun!” he shouted when the boy came into his sight, face red as if he had run a marathon—which he did. His smile was bright enough to make Sehun forget about Professor Snape and hardships of brewing the world’s foulest potions. “I was looking for you. I know you have Potions right now, so I thought about waiting for you to come out of class, but it seems you weren’t there after all.”

“Yeah, Trelawney held me off,” he said, hands resting on his knees while he tried to catch his breath—partly from all the running, partly from, well. Jongin. “You… You were looking for me?”

He risked a quick glance to the classroom door, almost as if waiting for Snape to materialize there. “I want to talk to you, but it can wait till your class is over, don't worry,” His cheeks turned pink as he kept talking, this time in a much lower volume. “It's nothing important, I just want to talk with you about… Something.”

“Oh, I don't have class right now! I mean, I have, but,” Sehun said, hiding his hands behind his back so that Jongin wouldn't see him fidgeting with his fingers—one of his worst habits whenever he was nervous. And he was now, a little bit, even if Jongin hadn't said anything that could leave him like that. It was just what he liked to call the _Jongin Effect_. “I don't think Snape will mind if I miss one class.”

He would.

“Are you sure? I mean… It's Snape.”

“Yeah, I'm sure! I’ll just be a little late, it’ll be fine.” It wouldn't, but he would gladly stand his teacher’s disappointed stares if that meant some minutes watching Jongin’s face and the way he always looked as if he had just gotten out of bed—even if it was afternoon already.

“Oh, it's great then!” he exclaimed, pursing his lips as if it wasn't really great or as if he was actually counting with the time Sehun would be in class to mentally prepare himself for what he wanted to talk about.

It was kind of cute the way Sehun could almost see the gears turning inside of his mind, searching for the right words to say. He waited, although not patiently, feet rhythmically tapping on the stone floor, until Jongin finally opened his — beautiful, _beautiful_ — mouth.

“Well, I… I wanted to know if you already had someone to go to Hogsmeade next weekend.” He said, hands hidden inside his pockets while he waited for Sehun to say something too. “Do you?”

Sehun’s mouth opened in a silent _oh_ while he processed the information inside of his head. He knew very well why Jongin was asking that — it was quite obvious — but his mind didn’t let him get his hopes up, not yet, even if his heart begged for it. Sehun always appreciated having both of his feet firm on the ground.

“No,” he answered simply, afraid he wouldn’t stop babbling if tried to say anything more with the way his heart was hammering inside his chest. But what if he sounded too cross? What if Jongin saw this one word answer as a sign he really wasn’t in the mood to talk?

(oh, god. heartbreak, disappointment, tragedy! trelawney was right)

“Oh! Good. I mean. Good for me. Because I wanted to ask if you would come with me. We could drink some butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks, and then… Well, I only planned it until there.” He laughed, more of anxiousness than anything else. As if it hadn’t been the best date invite Sehun had received in his whole life. “So, do you wanna come with me?”

Sehun unclasped his hands slowly, letting them hang by his side now that death by heart stroke didn't feel so imminent. “Of course I do. You… You didn't even have to ask, you know.” He smiled, trying to compose himself and pass Jongin a _you won't regret asking me out_ vibe, although it was pretty hard with the way his heart continued to beat wildly in his chest, even as the hypothetical worst had passed already.

“This is good. Yeah, _really_ good. So… I’ll meet you there.”

That meant all of Sehun’s friends would have a chance to witness the so anticipated date of the decade — Luhan’s words, not his —, seeing as they never passed away a chance to drown themselves in butterscotch as if it was truly alcoholic—not to say they wouldn't smuggle two or three bottles of firewhiskey after the trip. He could have asked Jongin to change the place, but his “friends” would accompany him to Madam Puddifoot’s Tea Shop if they knew what was going to happen, and Sehun still had his last bit of self-preservation at the time. So why not just go with it? Jongin asked him on a _date_. Nothing could ruin that.

Apart than himself, of course.

“I’ll be there!” he said, looking at Jongin’s back when, with a radiant smile, the other turned to where he came from and started making the way to the Hufflepuff dorm — his steps so light and utterly carefree that it wouldn’t be surprising if he started floating — so that he could scream the day into his pillow until it was engraved there forever.

Sehun, however, did not have the same luxury, as the oak door on his side did let him know, its presence making itself felt ask over the corridor, to the point he wouldn't be startled if Snape himself was on the other side, waiting for his enlightening conversation to end before giving him the biggest lecture ever. Not that he would care.

In the end, when he entered the class, almost fifteen minutes late, Snape just stared at him like he was a disgrace to the Slytherin house, and Seungwan, his partner, fondly wanted to break his neck, but he didn’t care—his head was on the clouds, soaring high in the countless fantasies his mind couldn’t not be bothered to stop weaving.

(heartbreak. disappointment. tragedy!

divination was such _bullshit_ )

 

* * *

 

> **xiii.** eight of cups
> 
> _— june 5th, 1998_

 

The trip was made, from beginning to end, in the heaviest silence.

Sehun decided against apparating home based on the reasoning that Jongin, prohibited from using even the most inoffensive spell, would need to get used to the muggle way of living _—_ and that included the muggle way of moving around the city. Henceforth, when he left the abandoned phone booth that gave access to the Ministry of Magic with a convicted murderer on his step, the first thing he did was hailing a cab.

Being a pureblood wizard who didn't understood the concept neither of phones nor cabs, Jongin could only look at him from under his heavy eyelids, pretending to be utterly uninterested with everything that might concern one Oh Sehun, even if the slight curiosity on his face was palpable as they entered the vehicle—not that he didn't knew cars existed, but he probably had never been in one, never needed to be. Still, he spent the whole travel to Sehun’s house with his mouth shut, eyes fixed on the scene blurring through the window as the driver sped up the way.

Maybe Sehun was the one supposed to start the conversation, when this was his idea, after all, even if he didn't believe it would actually succeed—he never heard of someone who managed to trade a life sentence at Azkaban for a house arrest. But he never heard of a Hufflepuff who was a death eater either, so maybe it was something Jongin related. He pondered about it as the two made their way up the stairs to Sehun’s flat — something told him it wouldn't be a good idea introducing Jongin and the elevator at that moment —, in an old but still nice looking building in the middle of muggle London, far away from anything remotely magical.

Ah, home sweet home. Sehun moved there as soon as the war ended, trying to stay as far as he could from anything that could trigger the memories in his brain, the pain and the screams and the fire. And now, his biggest possible trigger was awkwardly standing at his doorstep, while Sehun rummaged through the fridge in search of something that wasn't instant food or chocolate bars.

“Are you hungry? I’m going to order take out, it won't take long,” he peeked his head in the direction of the living room, only to see Jongin standing in the same position he had left him,  face devoid of any expression while his eyes roamed the extension of the room, from the portraits of Sehun’s family to the clothes hanging at the sofa’s arm and the open pack of cigars at the center table. “Oh, you must be wanting to take a bath, right? You can borrow some of my clothes while you don't have anything, and I have a spare towel I can give to you. Anyway, the bathroom is the first door to the left.”

He even pointed to it, but from the way Jongin continued absorbed, looking at the skyscrapers through the open window, Sehun figured out none of the words he spoke were heard. “Jongin?”

“What?” he said. It was first thing Sehun heard coming out of his mouth after their exchanged _expelliarmus_ , more than a month ago. And taking only civil conversations in count, first word after the _take care, Sehunnie_ after they set their feet in Platform 9 ¾ for the last time, waving goodbyes at each other while their parents came to pick them up and introduce both of them to the burdens and the wonders of adult life. They had even set up a date two weeks after, but when Sehun went to the place Jongin was nowhere to be seen. His letters were never answered, either, and when the war started definitely, it wasn’t long before he saw Jongin’s name in the list amongst other death eaters, the letters a stark contrast along the murderers who blindly followed Voldemort’s orders. He couldn’t believe it.

In fact, he only came to terms with that when he faced Jongin at the other side of the battlefield for the first time, more than six months ago.

“Take a bath. Food will be here soon.” He tried to keep his eyes away from Jongin while he slowly made the way to the bathroom, not wanting him to feel watched, even if that was what Sehun was supposed to do for as long as the arrangement lasted. Watch Jongin’s every step, see if that dark thing coiling inside his heart would let go someday, or if it would stay with him for as long as he drew breath.

Still, it was hard not to watch the line of his shoulders as he passed Sehun, the filth sticking to his robes and his body, so distant from the pristine white Jongin from before, the non-death eater Jongin, non-murderer Jongin. The Jongin with sleepy eyes and smiles and kisses on Sehun’s cheeks. The Jongin that was his almost boyfriend, almost best friend, almost everything. A Jongin, Sehun feared, long gone.

Sehun knew it was too late. That didn’t stop him from raising his hand in the trial, and it wouldn’t stop him from trying to do something — _anything_ — after it. Resigning himself to months of failed attempts he knew were coming, he went into his bedroom, searching for some clothes Jongin might use while they didn’t buy him his own stuff. He could call Junmyeon or Jongdae later and see if they could bring something for their cousin, but for the time being, Jongin would have to content himself with a halfblood’s clothes. At least they were the same size.

He left the clothes and the towel by the bathroom’s door with a light knock, fishing his cellphone from his pocket and ordering a pizza from the closest place. Did Jongin ever heard of pizza? Sehun surely didn’t remember eating it at Hogwarts. He asked for pepperoni, anyway, hoping Jongin would like it—and if not, they would have plenty of chances to try out. It wasn’t like Sehun didn’t eat pizza at least three times a week. More, if he was feeling particularly tired to cook something up.

He was absently flicking through the pages of a book back in the living room, pretending to read it when Jongin emerged from the hallway, his wet hair leaving a trail of water drops in the wooden floor. Sehun could not help but think he looked small in those clothes that weren't his; he seemed lost in Sehun's shoebox-sized home, like a child waiting for his mother to say what they would do next. What was he supposed to do there? He was prepared to rot for eternity in a tiny cell at Azkaban, not for this.

Unfortunately for him, Sehun was just as clueless.

“You want anything? Water, or…” Sehun asked, trying to give the day a semblance of normalcy, fragile as it could be, before he regretted all of his decisions since the last year. “Food should be here shortly. I ordered pizza. Do you know what pizza is?”

Jongin didn't answer him. Instead, he looked at Sehun, at the dirty clothes in his arms and then at Sehun again, as if it was the most difficult thing in the world, striking a conversation. “Where do I put these?” he asked, looking down to his robes.

“Oh… Throw them away, I don't think my washing machine can salvage that and I'm trying to flee from magic for a while… Anyway, it's not like you'll use them here.” He turned back to the book, but from the corner of his eyes he could see Jongin still standing at the same place. He was likely waiting for a house elf to materialize and do that for him. Sehun sighed and got up, snatching the clothes in the way.

“Here,” he said as he threw Jongin’s robes in the trash can. “is the laundry. Dirty clothes go in that bucket. I usually wash them once a week, but since you’ll live here until who knows how long, guess I’ll make it twice. So, you’ve seen the kitchen; you can get whatever you want from the fridge, but there aren’t a lot of things there to begin with. Your room is the door right after the bathroom. I’ll put some bedclothes after we eat and then we can sorter through your things. Well, when you get some, I suppose.”

Jongin said nothing about that. He was still looking at Sehun as if he was some funny thing, a little child trying an adult’s spell. Endearing, but useless.

“What are you trying to do?” he asked, after letting silence extend itself between them. The elephant in the room seemed as big as it could be. “I just. I can't understand. What is the reason behind all of this?”

“Do you prefer to stay with the dementors?” He busied himself organizing the table, putting the plates and the glasses in place so that he could easily ignore Jongin if needed. “I can arrange that, if it’s what you want.”

“This isn’t about I want,” he said. He looked particularly dumbfounded by the whole situation. “This is about what I _deserve_. If every other death eater is rotting in Azkaban by now, why am I here? What makes me special enough for this… House arrest, or whatever. Why did you do it?”

Sehun didn’t want to answer. He wanted to sweep everything under the rug until it was filled with so much dirt he couldn’t face it anymore. He wanted to pretend, at least for a little bit — can’t he have at least this, a little bit? — that nothing wrong had ever happened in his life. He wanted to live as if he had never seen the things he saw; the crumpled houses, the smoke, the bodies—the _corpses_.

“It doesn’t matter, okay?” He didn’t want Jongin to know how tired he was, how he clinged to a unstable flicker of his past, when his biggest worry was turning his potion’s assignments on the due date. He didn’t want him to see how close he was to giving up, enough that he volunteered to take a murderer under his roof. For what was Jongin if not the epitome of those beautiful memories from yesterday, if Sehun could forget about the fact he was also part the ugly ones that left him awake at night? “Just, like, behave and you’ll be free from me before you know it.”

He also didn’t want him to know he already regretted his decision. In fact, he started regretting it as soon as he stood up to speak.

“Of course it matters. I don’t think everything ever mattered so— Merlin!” he exclaimed, not so subtly getting closer to Sehun step by step, until they were close enough to touch. “You can’t just do this. I’m a criminal, you can’t just bring me home and chastise me like I’m your dog and you found me pissing in the neighbour’s door. It doesn’t work like this! So just tell me—”

The light tune of the doorbell saved Sehun from the rest of that sentence. “Pizza is here!” he shouted, more to himself than to Jongin, who stood by the sink, looking to the floor while Sehun maneuvered the pizza box in his tiny kitchen. The smell was delicious, but he didn’t feel hungry; not anymore. “Sit down, I gotta show you how to eat this.”

He should have known something wasn’t right when, instead of being his usual stubborn self, Jongin obeyed him, sitting at the table and watching as Sehun ate his slice without any cutlery. He didn’t ask him anything else—in fact, he didn’t say another word until he went to sleep, even as Sehun whispered a quick good night after showing his new room.

Sehun always liked the silence, but in that moment, it didn’t seem so friendly anymore.

( _traitor_ , the walls screamed at him, when the rain pounded into his window by his bed and his only worry was if he gave jongin a thick enough blanket. _why did you bring him into this house?_

 _murderer_ , his bones sang; ached, even, wanting to break free of that weak body, that weak mind. they were tired tired tired and sehun was tired tired tired too. _criminal liar torturer liar liar murderer murderer murderer. why?_

 _i don’t know_ , sehun answered them, eyes thick with sleep but mind racing endlessly through the darkest paths of his mind until there wasn’t anything he could do besides lying awake. _i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know_ )

 

* * *

   

> **xvi.** the tower
> 
> _— june 20th, 1998_

 

It was all quiet. Sehun didn’t thought he would end up dreading the idea of walking back to an empty home, to the dark and the hidden and the quiet, but there he was, standing in front of the door to his flat, strongly considering the possibility to go back to work and bury himself under the piles of cases to investigate.

Sometimes he almost forgot there was someone else living under his roof. Almost, because there was no way anyone in the Ministry would let him forget, not with they way they looked at him or talked about him behind his back. _Is he crazy?_ , they would whisper. _Is he in love?_ Sehun didn’t know the answer to these two questions, nor to any question thrown at him by his fellow aurors. Why did he do it? Did he think he could just feed Jongin and give him some nice blankets to sleep with and then _voilà_ , he would suddenly forget everything about his death eater past?

He used the dementor excuse, told himself innumerable times that he needed to do something or he would have ended up crazy thinking about it, about the _they, together_ , and the _they, apart_. But sometimes — just sometimes — he simply didn’t answer; eyes looking down while he shrugged. Sometimes, and just sometimes, he would say _I have no fucking idea._

He tried not to think of that as he turned the doorknob and entered his home, being greeted by the eerie silence which filled every crook and corner of the empty living room. Apart from an old book left open by his coffee table and a half full bowl of now sogged Fruit Loops,  there wasn’t any sign there was someone else living there, let alone a wizard who couldn’t use his magic and didn’t know how muggles did everyday tasks. Anyone else would’ve quickly assumed that the moment when Sehun raised his hand and offered to bring Jongin into his home was nothing more than a collective hallucination.

Sehun knew otherwise.

Trying to be as quiet as possible, he made the way to the second door to the left, where he knew Jongin was staying, or _hiding_ , which was a more appropriate word, since the moment he decided he didn’t needed to be anywhere else. After their first dinner, Sehun got used to leaving a plate with food in front of the door—sometimes he thought about not doing it and forcing Jongin out while he was there and both of them could talk, but he was certain the other would prefer starving than confronting him.

He didn’t recognize that Jongin, the one who hid, who didn’t make a single noise, who lied in bed all day looking to the white canvas of the roof. He remembered high pitched laughter like the chiming of bells and wide eyes. He remembered how hard he tried to take all of his features, to engrave them in a picture so that he could cherish it for eternity, the soft lips that parted to say _You’re so beautiful, Sehun-ah. Why are you hiding your face with your hands? It’s true, I swear!_

Of course, he didn’t believe Jongin hadn’t changed in the past two years. The man he knew before could never have done the things the man he saw on the courtroom did. But it would be a lie to say he didn’t hope to find a little something of him still there, defiant, a drop of white in a black picture. And it would be another lie to say it wasn’t on his plans to find that drop and make it grow again; he knew it would never be as it was before, but if there was something he believed firmly it was that he could salvage what rested of it, if Jongin just gave him a chance.

What he didn’t expect was to bring a shallow shell home, the ghost of both the old version of Jongin and the new one—barely moving, barely talking, barely breathing. Did he really save him from the dementors, or did they somehow find a way to do their job in the rotten dungeon of the Ministry of Magic? Maybe it was too late, or maybe it was already too late when they both took different sides in a war that caught them at the cusp of adulthood and turned their dreams into specks of dust.

And he didn’t even take a step inside his house yet. His own home, which felt nothing like it. Instead, he came to think of it as a hideout, a place where he could forget magic existed, and above else, that it killed. He was tired, so tired, and it wasn’t even Jongin’s fault this time. He had been tired for a long time, the aching in his muscles only growing with the dawn and the dusk of days, getting louder and louder with how long he ignored it. Sehun wanted a break, a place where he could lay down his bones and sleep—and where he didn’t need to wake up.

(tired tired tired _tired_ )

He sighed—it was something he tended to do a lot in this past week. It wasn’t as if he had another option besides just going forward. A bath would help him, he decided. Things were always clearer after he washed down the dust clinging into his skin.

After that and changing himself to a set of clean and loose clothes, he made his way to the kitchen, thinking of all the instant ramen flavours he could choose from: meat, chicken or… Well, he didn’t need a lot of options if he always chose chicken flavoured ramen, right? But what he found in the kitchen was different of what he was used to.

Kim Jongin was searching — or more like scavenging — his cabinets for something edible. By the way Sehun’s eyes widened, he couldn't deny his surprise at finally seeing Jongin out of his room, even if it in that state: clothes were all crumpled and hair in complete disarray, the look of someone who was holed up in his room for longer than what could be considered healthy—and that defined his situation at the moment.

“Are you hungry? I can teach you how to at least cook instant ramen for when you're alone. It's pretty simple,” he said, trying to hold Jongin there for a long as he could before losing his to his room. “Just let me find the ingredients.”

He said that, but it wasn't as if instant ramen had any other ingredient besides the ramen itself and water. Maybe another day he could teach Jongin how to cook real ramen, or chicken—he still had vivid memories of Jongin almost eating a whole chicken in one of their last dinners before Christmas break, when they weren't anything more than casual friends.

For all Sehun knew, he could very well have fallen for Jongin right there, when his belly looked about to explode, but the smile plastered in his face told everyone that it was totally worth it.

In that moment, however, Jongin seemed to have a different plan which consisted in sneaking out without having said a word, as if Sehun wouldn't perceive he was gone until he was safely locked in his room. As if the months on the field wouldn’t make him alert to the slightest noise and, worst of all, as if he didn’t care for Jongin enough to pay attention to him after days of absence. As if, and not for the first time since he brought Jongin into his home, Sehun wondered what was he trying to achieve with a succession of bad decisions and even worse ways of trying to fix them.

What was he doing with his life?

“Jongin,” he said, eyes fixing on the other’s retreating back. “Jongin!” he said again, but there wasn’t an answer, nor any signal that he was heard. Only silence. Not even the television dared to make a sound.

(he was so, _so_ tired)

He didn’t remember clearly what happened next. One moment he was watching Jongin leave to his room, in the other he had his hand wrapped around his wrist, pulling him back to the kitchen with more force than he needed to. Jongin’s surprised yelp didn’t reach his ears as he made him sit in the nearest chair, looking at him as if he was some problematic child, not a grown up adult capable of making the worst possible choices. And Sehun, always calm and collected; cold, even, the students would whisper in the school’s long corridors. _I’ve never seen him smiling_. Weren’t all slytherins cold, after all? Snakes, liars, death eaters. But not Sehun, not him. He had enough.

“What are you doing?” Jongin asked, too astonished to even get up again. Sehun didn’t answer him, instead going around the kitchen fishing for the right pot. “Are you crazy or something?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he said, louder than necessary, wishing his hands wouldn’t tremble as he turned the stove on. His head felt as if it was going to explode, and Merlin, how he wanted to just let it—how he wanted to disappear. “Just shut up,” he said again, much lower this time.

Good, now Jongin probably thought he was crazy. Sehun let his body fall down on the chair across from where Jongin was still sitting, looking absolutely lost. His hands found their way to his hair, lightly kneading his head, as if that could make the whole world go away.

“I don’t get it,” Jongin started, his eyes fixed in the steam that rose up as the water boiled. “Why are you doing this? I tried, but I can’t wrap my head around it.”

Sehun closed his eyes for a little moment before opening them and looking at Jongin’s downcast ones. “I told you.”

“Sure. Forgive me if I don’t buy the dementor excuse.” He gave a short, mirthless laugh. “Why aren’t you at the Ministry saving all those other poor death eaters like me then, uh?”

“Because I don’t care about them the way I care about you,” he answered. _Because I didn’t watch them smile and laugh and fall and rise up. I didn’t watch them grow up. I didn’t love them_.

“You shouldn’t,” Jongin said, his voice no louder than a whisper. Sehun just wanted to scream.

“Well, you shouldn’t have become a death eater, but look at you know. Don’t tell me what I should or shouldn’t do,” he argued. Literally anyone else could have said that to him and he would have agreed, but not Jongin. Not after what he did.

“Well, doesn't this make me an expert on bad decisions? I would know.”

“Not when your _bad decisions_ involved torturing and killing people and mine involve trying to save what little humanity I still believe you have.” Pause. Sehun got up, turned the stove off and grabbed clean plates. “Somewhere.”

Jongin didn't fight back. Instead, he looked at the food, at Sehun and then back at his food, considering the chances of  sneaking out unseen this time, while Sehun was distracted filling his plate.

“It still sounds crazy to me,” Jongin said quietly, turning the fork around in his fingers. Sehun remembered when he used to do something like that with the strands of his hair. “How you aren’t screaming at me, nor pretending that I don’t exist. You are, you know… Trying.”

“Oh believe, I want to scream at you until your ears fall off, I want to ask you why, I want to _fight_ you, Jongin. But I know it wouldn’t change anything. And more than screaming, I want… I don’t even know what I want. Quiet things. Simple things. Mostly, I guess, I want to forget.”

“Ain’t I gonna serve as a constant memory, then?”

Sehun bit his cheek before answering, thinking how much he could say without seeming like someone who didn’t have any ideas about what to do next. “Not if I can find a way to see the person I remember you were. You know, the guy who left me at the Platform 9 ¾  with a kiss in the corner of my lips. Maybe that’s the true reason I brought you here,” he pondered, eyes fixed in Jongin’s still moving fingers. “To heal myself, not you.”

The rest of dinner when by relatively quiet, with the only source of noise being the upstairs neighbors constant fighting. Sehun believed he could get used to that—the silent presence across the table, an old time friend with whose life took a path so different than yours that you no longer know what to talk about.

Without all the criminal implications, of course.

“You know,” Jongin said when both of them were putting their dishes in the sink, shoulders aligned but not touching, not after the war that happened around and between them. “I was thinking about what you said. And I don’t know if this won’t sound ridiculous or anything, but I just wanted to… I’m going along with this, if it’s what you want. Like, I still can’t see how _my_ presence will help you, but if it’s what you think, then—”

“Shut up, Jongin,” Sehun cut him, but different than what happened before, this one didn’t have any bite in it. It was affectionate, even, like someone telling their best friend to shut up. If only the faint scar of the dark mark weren’t proudly standing against his tanned skin, Sehun though. If only. “I cooked, so the dishes are yours.”

“But you only boiled the water.”

“My house, my rules,” he recalled, throwing himself on his battered sofa after turning his radio on. “Hurry up or you’re going to lose Eurovision!”

A faint _what the fuck_ came from the kitchen, and Sehun repressed the bubbling feeling emerging from his chest. It was too soon, or so said his brain. Or too late.

( _you’re just in time_ , said his heart)

 

* * *

 

> **vi.** six of cups
> 
> — _july 8th, 1998_

 

In the following weeks, they tried (as in, keyword: tried) to establish at least a spark of normalcy in their lives again. Jongin still spent more time than what was adequate surrounded by the yellow walls of his room, and Sehun still couldn't look at him in the eyes some day or another, which was funny, considering the whole _I need to see the person I remember you being_ plan—it wasn't one or two or three times only that he caught himself doubting there was a way to do that, and doubting even more that it could help him.

It was slow business, but Sehun never expected it to be quick. Falling in love with Jongin was quick. Falling out of hate (and sadness and disappointment and hurt) with him surely wouldn't be.

With that notion in mind, and observant of the fact that, as much more open Jongin seemed to be with the world in general, he still only did within the confines of Sehun’s home, Sehun decided to take him out.

To the movies.

Cliche as the idea may have been, he didn't know anywhere else they could go. A supermarket? A restaurant? The neighborhood square? All those seemed ridiculous to his mind. In the end, there was something only the movies could proportionate him—and Jongin, he hoped, if all went according to his plan.

(and that, looking at his other plans, was easier said than done)

He decided to breach the subject swiftly, since every other time he beated around the bush trying to take Jongin somewhere, the other quickly realized his intentions and gave Sehun a lame excuse before fleeing to the comfort of his room. More often than not, Sehun found himself secretly glad for that attitude—but what was the point, he always thought later, of staying like that? What would he write in his weekly letters to Shacklebolt? _Jongin, as every other day, hasn't done anything; and I, also, continue not making any effort to concretize the things I promised to make come true._

Shameful. Not like there was a single chance Shacklebolt didn't pity him after the whole trial mess, but being the prideful thing that he was, Sehun didn't wish to give him any more reason to believe he was still trapped is his post-war grieving mind.

(as if he wasn't)

Jongin, eyes glued to the book he started just a day before and was almost finishing already — with nothing else to do, he made a personal mission of devouring Sehun’s whole bookcase —, didn't sense the presence coming closer until it was too late, and Sehun’s shadow obscured the words he was reading. It didn’t pass unperceived that he hesitated a little before raising his head, facing the eyes that were almost parallel to his own.

“Wanna go out?” Sehun asked, before Jongin had the chance to even ask what was that supposed to mean. “We can watch The X-Files before it’s out of theaters. I don’t know if it will make much sense to you, though, since you’ve never watched the series. Hell, do you even know what a television series is?”

“... What is a television?,” Jongin asked, taken aback by the sudden rambling.

Sehun held the wish to sigh. It wasn’t his fault that Jongin was heavily uneducated in muggle stuff, but it was his duty now, as his sort of caretaker, to finally help him discover the things from which his family kept him ignorant.

“Well, what you’ll see in the movie theater is basically a big television playing The X-Files, so I guess we can kill two birds with one stone with this. Are you in or not?”

Jongin slowly closed his book, after bending a small portion of paper to mark where he was in his reading. Sehun got a glance of the colorful cover of The Fellowship of the Ring. Of course, Sehun wouldn't expect for Jongin to welcome the idea of letting magic go so quickly, even in literature.

“I guess… I mean, aren't you the one in charge, either way?”

“Yeah,” Sehun hesitated, not wanting to let Jongin know he had no idea how the whole caretaker thing was supposed to work since the beginning. “But I want to do things the right way, so we're not going anywhere if you don't want it.”

Jongin’s full lips opened in a small _oh_ , coming back to normal as soon as Sehun blinked. He expected the whole house arrest thing to go very differently, that's for sure—for what he knew, it meant literally a _house_ arrest, and he couldn't go out anywhere, even accompanied by someone. Sehun, it seemed, though otherwise.

“Let's go, then,” he decided, a small smile gracing his mouth to mask the anxiety. As if Sehun couldn't see it. As if he wasn't submerged in his own personal turmoil too.

Readying themselves quickly — since any minute still at home was a minute to reconsider their choices — they got out of the flat and into the muggle world; or at least, that was what it seemed to Jongin, a pureblood boy who never ventured anywhere more mugglelike than Diagonal Alley, with its bunch of new and oblivious students coming every year, looking at the shopping windows, fascinated with the most useless trinkets. Sehun wondered if he shouldn't have prepared Jongin first,  taught him what he could and couldn't say or do.

Being a halfblood, however, he didn't know how. Living in both worlds was to him easy as breathing—the muggle world was a part of him as much as the wizard one, like different sets of limbs that made him think and move and live. How could he teach to someone the things he knew even before he was born?

“Where is this theater thing?” Jongin asked, past the phase of being mesmerized how all the cars in the street knew when to stop and when to go according to the traffic lights.

“Far. Don't worry, we're taking the subway. It's kinda like Hogwarts Express, but the railroad runs underground,” he explained, trying to find wizard-y similars to everything Jongin asked of him. He still didn't know what to use for cellphone, though. “We’ll be there in like, 20 minutes or less.”

“But how can you see the landscape if you all put your railroads _underground_?” Jongin asked, making it look like it was some kind of absurd to not appreciate the scenery while catching a ride.

Sehun helped him maneuver through the crowd filling the staircase of the subway entrance while speaking. “The view doesn't matter that much here. As long as it’s fast, it's good.”

From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Jongin shaking his head in disappointment. “Muggles,” he murmured.

They spent the rest of the trip in relative silence. Jongin held back any more questions still resting on the tip of his tongue, and Sehun was glad to let his head rest against the window and close his eyes. Everything would be fine, or at least that was what he told himself. There wasn’t much that could go wrong in a movie theater, and nothing that he couldn’t fix, or at least amenize, with some flicks of his wand. The only truly variable was Jongin, and the tattoo still on his arm proving the things he had done and the ones he might still be capable to do.

Until the movie’s line, nothing strange happened. Jongin was too busy looking around, absorbing all the lights and the details, everything totally magic-free, like he didn't truly believe they could be real. It was only when they were already inside that he started talking again.

“Why is it so dark? We won't be able to see anything,” Jongin said, failing to find his seat amongst all the others. Sehun had to guide him by hand to the last row in the room, where their assigned seats were.

“You’ll know once the movie starts,” he said, balancing the bucket of popcorn on his knees. “Remember you can't say anything out loud, so if you need to tell me something you’ll have to whisper.”

“I know, Sehun,” he replied, his tone annoyed, fingers circling the rim of the soda cup while waiting for the movie to start. “I’m not a child.”

 _You’re a pureblood wizard surrounded by muggles_ , Sehun wanted to say. _You’re worse than any child._

Truth is, when the theatre screen suddenly came alive, Sehun wasn’t paying attention to it. His eyes were fixed on Jongin’s wide ones, in how his mouth hanged by his chin, hand full of popcorn frozen midway in its path. It was no problem that he didn’t have a camera to capture the moment—it would stay frozen behind his eyelids, appearing every time someone asked him why he made such weird choices. _This is it_  he would say, in his dreams, when his head started to ache with the weight of it all. _This is the man I once knew. That I know now_.

He wanted to strangle Jongin. He wanted to ask him why he did the things he did, why he thought them right. He wanted to send him in the nearest boat to Azkaban and be done with him, put the past behind for once and all, forget every once and every thread of magic living and spinning inside of him. Most of all, he wanted to hold Jongin until all their bones turned to dust, until his head and his lungs and his heart stopped hurting, until no question needed to be asked and no answer needed to be told.

(sehun always wanted a lot of things: a flying toy, a nimbus 2001, a persian cat, the most expensive book about potions, a nice house by the beach, forgiveness, peace, death, peace, rest)

He wanted a lot of things. What he did, however, was turn his head back to the screen and watch the movie, calm and still, as if the raging sea inside him didn’t just wreck a ship like a child’s first toy.

Sehun didn’t risk catching a glimpse of Jongin up to the moment the movie’s credits started to rise in the screen. While the room suddenly felt little with all the voices raising up and the people moving, always brisk, like London was needing them outside the four walls of the theatre room, Jongin and Sehun stayed in their same places, soft and silent, neither of them wanting to disturb the unexpected peacefulness resting upon their heads.

“So,” Sehun said, when they were the last people still in the room. “Did you like it?”

“Why didn’t you told me muggles had things like wizard pictures? But like, way longer,” he asked, half distraught and half impressed. “And with sounds, and better colors, and… You know. Better, overall.”

Sehun shrugged. “Say hello to technology, Jongin. There’s much more about muggles that you don’t understand. Like microwave ovens or space rockets. Don’t even get me started on the internet.”

“What is an internet?” he asked. “No, wait. If it’s something complicated like a phone, I don’t want to know.”

“It’s worse.”

“Merlin, you muggles complicate _everything_.”

“Do you know what’s complicated, Jongin? _Magic._ ”

It was a theater’s employee that finally broke the spell and shooed them from the room. Jongin was, even if he didn’t want to show, a little lightheaded after the “muggle magic” experience, looking around them and shaking his head as if to say that was impossible. For a boy who grew up taught that muggles weren’t any better than scum, at least he didn’t throw a fit and denied everything. In Sehun’s point of view, that was as good as it could get.

Almost an hour later, they were already close to home; Sehun dozing off with his head against the window of the train and Jongin fidgeting with the holes on his jeans. Somewhere else, they could be best friends catching a ride for the nearest party. Somewhere far away.

“Sehun,” Jongin said, with the same small voice Sehun knew from very long ago. “Can we have a television?”

Half sleep, Sehun mumbled something incoherent before properly answering him. “I guess I can spare the money. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” Jongin repeated. Even with half closed eyes and a fuzzy mind, Sehun could see the smile gracing his lips as he closed his eyes and reclined against the train bench.

Something inside of him shifted. Closing his eyes once more, the corners of Sehun’s lips curled into the beginning of a smile, and for the first time in months, he didn’t hold them back.

 

* * *

 

>   **x.** the wheel of fortune
> 
> — _august 1st, 1998_

 

Sehun couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment when his world decided to turn upside down. He didn’t even known if there was an exact moment, or if that wasn’t the result of a series of little switches, here and there, slowly making a mess of everything he knew and everything he believed to be true.

He thought it was fitting: the way things continued to change, to make and remake themselves as he standed there, incapable of following the flow of the world around him. Sehun was used to staying behind; to remembering, to yearning, to longing.

He didn’t come home to silence anymore. Now, whenever he opened the door, he could see Jongin’s legs leisurely swinging over the armrest while he watched whatever was on the television at the time, be it a soap opera, the news, or a very old movie—after watching _Gone With the Wind_ five times, Jongin could perform more than half of the script.

Sehun didn’t know what to make out of that. In the short time since the trial, he learned how to deal with a different Jongin, one who sulked and hid without saying a single word. He learned how to deal with a Jongin who had, undoubtedly, changed—and he learned easily because he himself had changed, in the same way as Jongin did.

It was when Jongin started showing signs of the man he was before, when he smiled and laughed and stopped to pet stray dogs on the street, that Sehun got lost. He wrote letter after letter to Shacklebolt, praising how Jongin seemed to be improving within each day, growing more and more distant to the man Sehun brought home from the courtroom. Still, when he came home to Jongin dozing off in the sofa, softly mumbling to himself in his sleep, he couldn’t feel so enthusiastic about it. Why, if that was what he always wanted? Or at least, what he thought he wanted?

He felt stupid for thinking that he could deal with everything at once, for believing some crazy idea that popped up in his brain in the worst possible moment, for filling his own head with so much doubts he couldn’t see an end to them.

(and it was so odd—how he was perfectly fine with all the shit happening before, _positive_ , even, that he could change it, and then, when things suddenly began to get better, life seemed to have become a bunch of wrong choices, and sehun regretted everything he had ever done)

He was shaken off his reverie by the feeling of something cold poking his thigh. “Wake up,” Jongin said, feet touching Sehun’s skin under his shorts. “It’s your phone.”

Oh, of course. Jongin claimed that he didn’t answer any calls because he didn’t like meddling into private things like that, but the truth was that he still didn’t knew how to answer it. So much for pressing the green button.

He was milliseconds away from pressing it when he stopped, the automatic movement of his finger stopping  when he read the name flickering in his screen. Before, he would call her himself, unable to stand the heavy silence that descended upon his home. After all, what a better place to cry than a mother’s lap?

Ever since the word about his new guest travelled, however, their relationship soured. His mother couldn’t understand the reasons behind his actions, and Sehun couldn't find the words to explain it to her—not when he couldn’t explain it properly to himself. This call, he knew, would only become as full of disappointment and confusion as the others before, complete with a snarky remark at the end of it. He wouldn’t forget the last one so quickly. _You’re still stuck to a boy you once loved_ , she had said, so clear that Sehun couldn’t almost imagine her sticking her finger on his chest. _That you still love. And you can’t see he’s not that boy anymore. He’s a monster._

(ah, motherly encouragement)

He sighed, put his phone back on the coffee table and turned back to the movie, where the main characters were finally confessing their love for each other, as if nothing had happened. Soon enough, Jongin’s feet were poking him again, cold toes sneaking under the fabric of Sehun’s shorts until he had his attention.

“What?” he asked.

“Why didn't you answer her?” Jongin said, his tone not one of doubt. Sehun wouldn't be surprised if he overheard one of his conversations with his mother from over the paper-thin walls of the flat. Even if he didn't, it wasn't hard to assume none of Sehun’s close relatives and friends were happy with the turn his life was taking.

“I'm not in the mood to talk right now,” he answered. Jongin may know his reasons, but there wasn’t any need to throw them in his face. “Besides, they’re finally going to kiss.”

“Are they? I was under the impression you stopped watching this movie at, like, the second scene,” Jongin said, his eyebrows raised in an unimpressed manner. Sehun often forgot how perceptive he could be. “You know, I’m not going to be sad or something if your mom starts bad mouthing me. It’s not like I don’t deserve it.”

“I don’t care if she says shit about you, I just don’t want to hear her complaining about my life choices,” he said, receiving a light kick in his thigh in return. “What? It’s true! I don’t even listen when someone tries to say something about you. It’s like my brain shuts off the moment it knows the _advice_ is coming.”

Sehun waited for an answer, but it never came. When he looked over to where Jongin lay sprawled over the sofa, finding a melancholic glint in his eyes, combined with a the smallest of smiles gracing his lips. An expression he knew all too well.

“Don’t even start with the _you should listen to them_ bullshit. I don’t hear it from them and I won’t hear it from you.”

Getting himself in a sitting position, Jongin made sure to be eye-level with Sehun before speaking. “I know, but _you should_.”

“Why no one cares to ask what _I_ think I should do?” Sehun asked—the heavens, Merlin, God himself; he didn’t know anymore. “Look, I know you ever since we were kids, right? Didn’t we met in the second year when Minseok accidently hit a bludger on you in the opening match and he dragged us all to the infirmary with him because we said he should ‘rock that shit up’ and that meant everyone was at fault too. From that day it has been what, nine years? So forgive me if I believe I know you way better than my mom, or all the shitheads at the office. And forgive me if even the knowledge of all the things you’ve done isn’t enough to let me sit while they drag you to Azkaban. Merlin, Jongin, we used to date. Almost. We were, like, high school sweethearts in a muggle movie. If even _I_ didn’t believe you could be better than that, what would this say about me?”

And damn, he wasn’t supposed to talk that much, but there were too many things sitting at the back of his throat, wanting to come out, to be said. Sehun was tired of having to defend himself from his mother, his friends and his coworkers—but mostly, he was tired of battling against his own self, of being tied in a cycle of _should I_ and _shouldn’t I_ with no end in sight. He wanted to trust in himself, to look at all the choices he had made and think _yeah, that’s good._

Jongin was one of those right choices, he knew it. He knew, and could not — and should not and _would not_ — let anyone make him think otherwise.

(why was him so set in this? he didn’t know. he didn’t know, but everyone — jongin, his mother, his friends, even fucking shacklebolt, in a way — knew. everyone but him)

“You know,” Jongin said after a while, the sadness in his eyes replaced by a sudden strike of mirth. “I wasn’t going to say anything before, if you hadn’t brought it up.”

“Don’t lie to me. The words were, like, on the tip of your tongue.” The way Jongin quickly averted his eyes from Sehun after hearing that were proof enough of what was being said. “I said it before, but I know you, Jongin. More than you think I do.”

Jongin didn’t know how to react to that, if the almost unnoticeable blush blooming through his cheeks was to say anything. He turned his head back to the movie, now much closer to Sehun than he was at the beginning, their shoulders almost touching. Sehun did the same, but a long time passed before he could shake off the feeling that their knees would be touching each other, if only he moved a little more to the right.

It was almost an hour later when the movie ended, as predictable as it had started. The evil was defeated, Earth was saved, John and Jane Doe kissed and married and had children and did everything straight couples do after saving the world. Sehun had also saved the world — even if the credit had to be split with some other dozens of people —, but he wasn’t straight, and the person he loved was actually fighting in the opposite side of the war, which made his ending quite different: watching muggle movies with a convict criminal who used to be a wizard supremacist but now got fascinated over the concept of microwave ovens.

“Sehun,” Jongin asked him while the credits rolled on the screen. “Do muggles really have starships like those?”

“Yes,” he said, laughing a bit at the way Jongin’s eyes widened with the new information. “Well, not like those ones, but they have rockets and space shuttles, which can actually take people to space. Maybe they’ll have starships in the future. I wouldn’t put it behind them.”

“No space wars then?”

“Thankfully.”

They both laughed then, not louder than the song playing in the television, twinkling like light that reflects over spilled oil—beauty born in the ugliest of things. Sehun excused himself while Jongin took the dishes, walked to the bathroom in measured steps, closed the door behind him and tried not to scream.

 _You're in love_ , his mother said, but he thought she was being stupid and stubborn. _You're in love_ , she said again, her tone somber, darker overall. _There's no other reason you would bring that man into your home_.

 _He's in love_ , his coworkers would say behind his back, pretending to be cataloguing information while they whispered assumptions to each other. _Or else why would he do that in front of many people? Risk his reputation pleading for a death eater?_

 _You're in love_ , Baekhyun said to him, in a quiet sunday at the ice cream parlor, just a week before. Sehun laughed and jokingly called him crazy, but Baekhyun — who smiles and laughs and yells — remained serious, lips pursed while they waited for their orders. _It's in the eyes. It's always been in your eyes, Sehun._

“I'm in love,” he said to the reflection on the mirror, as if it was someone else, as if the eyes staring back at him weren't his. He was in love three years before and he was in love then, before he even believed he could feel something apart from fear and anger. He was in love in a way so different than before—a way that threatened to rip his chest open, that braided the strings of his heart just to tear them off. He had changed. Jongin had changed. And he was still stuck on the same place, three years ago, a boy asking him on a date in Hogsmeade, a smile no _Cruciatus_ could take away from his head.

He isn't in love just now—he never ceased to be.

 

* * *

 

> **iii.** three of swords
> 
> — _december 28th, 1997_

 

It’s going to be simple, they said. You guys just need to follow some trails, old paths used by the death eaters in their first attempt at winning this war. Who knows, they almost certainly haven’t been used since then.

That was how the three of them — Sehun, Chanyeol and Jongdae — ended up spending their Christmas recess in a cold Scottish forest, searching for hints in places no death eater must’ve thought to come even close. After all, if that strategy didn’t work 17 years before, why would it work now?

Upon arrival, Sehun would’ve liked to tell them the words _almost_ and _certainly_ didn’t go well in the same sentence.

“Guess I won’t be seeing the new year because I’ll have frozen to death here,” Chanyeol muttered beside him. With his white puffer coat and jeans, he looked like the tallest snowman Sehun had ever seen—if only snowmen had bright, red hair. “This cold is surely way more effective at killing people than the death eaters.”

Jongdae scoffed. Sehun didn’t pay attention to it, continuing to walk forward. There was something in the air that made the hairs in his arm stand up, even covered by the heavy layers of his parka. The instructions said the cave they used as a tunnel shouldn’t be too deep within the forest, and that they would see small carving on the trees, signaling its direction. In the more than one hour they’ve been searching, however, not a single mark was found.

“There must’ve been something wrong,” Jongdae said, almost as if he was voicing Sehun’s thoughts out loud. “I mean, we’re following the map and everything, but there’s no trace someone laid foot this deep in this forest for like, some fifty years at least. There’s nothing here.”

“But they used it in the last war. I mean, there’s a map and everything—who did must’ve surely seen the cave.” Sehun tried to make sense of the situation, even if he was tempted to agree with Jongdae and head home as soon as he could. “And Shacklebolt wouldn’t send three wizards away to the depths of Scotland in times like these if he wasn’t sure we would find something. Maybe if we came back by this same way and take more time investigating our surroundings...”

Jongdae didn’t seem too pleased with the idea, but one of the perks of being a trio is that they would always have someone to be the tiebreaker. “So, Chanyeol, what do you think?”

Sehun and Jongdae took his eyes out of each other and turned to the left, where Chanyeol was walking the whole time.

He wasn’t there.

Snow and trees surrounded them from every side, almost closing off the sunlight. Not even Chanyeol’s footsteps could be seen.

“Shit,” Sehun heard Jongdae muttering under his breath. “Shit, I knew something was going to happen. Why can’t we have some nice missions in Hawaii or something? Shit.”

That wasn’t the time to panic. Not there, while they didn’t have any idea of where their friend might be. “He must’ve found something,” Sehun said, more as a way to calm his heart than as something he truly believed. “On the trees, he must’ve seen something. Let’s go back.”

“Shit, okay. If there was something here surely it would’ve appeared as we entered, right? I guess I’m right,” He said, so fast Sehun that couldn’t understand anything after _surely._  He was retracing their steps already, turning his head from side to side in hope of seeing a mop of red hair sticking out of the white background.

“Chanyeol!” they both shouted into the forest. “Chanyeol!”

No one answered them. In fact, besides their constant yelling, no sound could be heard; not even the rustling of leaves, or the wind that was present before, howling in their ears. The more time they spent searching, the faster Sehun’s heart beat against his chest, refusing to slow down. Jongdae was scared too—it was clear in the way his voice grew louder and louder, as if he was trying to reach even the furthest corners of the forest.

"Okay, maybe we should call someone. Or... I don't know. Shit, Jongdae, I don't know." He said, stopping in the middle of two trees he surely didn't remember seeing before. "Jongdae?"

When he turned back, Jongdae wasn't there either.

"Fuck," he whispered. He looked around and found nothing but bare, twisted branches, almost claw-like. The trees seemed to have gotten closer to him, as if they wanted to squeeze him to death.

He wanted to scream. Unfortunately, he knew, nor Jongdae nor Chanyeol would listen to him. No, if someone _did_ listen, it would be someone he didn't wish to meet.

Sehun was so deep in his thoughts, in trying to find exactly where he was so that he could continue searching for his friends, that he didn't hear the soft sounds in the snow warning him of someone coming closer, taking advantage of his distress to sneak behind him. When Sehun felt the tip of a wand coming in contact with his back, it was too late.

There was a muttered _Cruciatus_ , and before the word made sense in his head, he was already screaming. His insides felt like they were on fire; every muscle on his body was being ripped out, stitched back and ripped out again and again and again, an endless agony from which he could not break free. Time had never moved so slow to him as in that few seconds.

Sehun felt blood filling his mouth when he bit his tongue, and struggling between screaming and breathing, the world around him darkned until he could not see or feel anything.

( _it's going to be simple_ , they said. well, sehun would like to talk to someone about what _simple_ truly meant in a war)

He regained his consciousness after a while—he didn't know how many time had passed, and neither what time was now. He couldn't see the sun over the canopy of the trees, which meant that night was approaching fast. The first thing in his head was that he needed to get out of there, before he had to cast a _lumos_ and attract unwanted attention, as he did before. In fact, he felt so weak he didn't know if could successfully cast a spell as easy as that.

And there was also the question of someone — much likely a death eater — torturing him, yes, but leaving him alive. He certainly knew Sehun wasn't dead when he blacked out, and an _Avadra Kedavra_ was a precaution no death eater he knew would shy away from taking.

He would need to talk with Shacklebolt later. In that moment, his priority was getting out of the damn forest, alive and with his friends. Before he had time to stand up, however, he heard the crackling of twigs under someone's feet.

As fast as he could, he took his wand from his pocket, pointing it out to whoever was coming near him, the words of a spell waiting in the tip of his tongue. Inside, he hoped for Chanyeol or Jongdae—for the two of them, together, so that they could leave that place. The world, on the other hand, had other plans for him.

Walking out of the trees and standing in front in him, there was no one else other than a man he knew all too well—a man he didn't believe when his friends told him he had gone to Voldemort's size, not even when Jongdae, his own cousin, told Sehun it was true.

With death eater clothes and a mask held loosely in his hand, Jongin stood before Sehun, surprise written all over his face. Sehun knew he was in a similar state, mouth hanging open while his brain tried to link all this information into a coherent string of thought.

And one that didn't make him want to scream, or to cry.

It was Jongin who spoke first, after a minute that seemed to stretch for hours. He opened his mouth, closed it, and shook his head in disbelief before opening it again.

“What are you doing here?” he said, and fuck that about not wanting to scream. Sehun really wanted to scream right there, to take Jongin by the shoulders and knock some sense inside his head. By all means, it should be Sehun the one making that question, especially after catching a glimpse of that wretched mark creeping around his wrist.

“You know, I didn't believe when they told me,” he said, his voice unbelievably soft for someone who was going through a whirlwind inside his head. “Even Junmyeon came to me and said it was true, but I refused to believe him. Merlin, I wanted to fight him, to tell him that he was wrong; that they were all wrong. But they weren't. _I_ was the wrong one.”

He expected no answer, and Jongin didn't give him one, nor tried to excuse himself—he knew it would only make Sehun angrier.

“You really are a death eater, aren't you?” he asked, even if he already knew the answer. Maybe he just wanted to be a hundred percent sure before saying anything, or maybe he still hoped that Jongin would say that he was a spy for the Order, that he needed people to believe he had allied with Voldemort.

Luhan always said he was too hopeful. It was time to kill that part of him.

“Don't say it as if it's something new. We've been fighting on different sides ever since this war began, Sehun.” Jongin said, looking straight into Sehun's eyes as his fingers tightened around the borders of his mask. “It's not my fault you didn't believe your friends.”

”I didn't believe them because I believed in _you_! God, how can you be so... I defended you, and all the while you were out there, torturing people, murdering them!”

”Look, I don't have the time to explain myself to you right now, okay? And even if I did, it's not like you would understand—”

“Understand what? Fucking look at me, Jongin!” He pointed to the dried blood painting the skin of his chin red before wiping what he could with snow. “It was one of your _friends_ that did this, with a nice _Cruciatus_ against me. Are you going to say you didn't do the same before? That you have your _reasons_ , or whatever bullshit you made up in your head to make you feel less guilty, uh?”

To have someone accusing him clearly wasn’t what Jongin was expecting for that day, and he let it show in the ugly grimace that rose upon his face.

“You don’t know shit! So you’re in the Order, fighting for the world and the muggles and now you want what? Congratulations? We’re different, Sehun! You might think I go around killing people for fun or whatever, but when the muggles discover us and burn us to oblivion like they did before, don’t come to me crying. We’re warning you, it’s us or them.”

Incredible. Sehun would’ve spat in his shoes, if only he had more strength. “Are you gonna stay there and continue with this litany or are you gonna finish what you friend started?”

He really wanted to know if Jongin was truly capable of killing him, if he really turned his back to everything he held true. Sehun kissed his lips a thousand times, and now they were ready to proclaim his death in the middle of nowhere, with his friends still lost somewhere, maybe dead, maybe about to die, like him. The snow would do quick work of covering their bodies, and anyone who tried to find them would end up lost amongst the trees.

It was the perfect trap, and they walked right into it.

Jongin seemed torn off. It was clear that he was sent there to finish what the other death eater left behind, but he wasn’t expecting to see Sehun, and he wasn’t expecting the other to fight him, even if only with words. He had orders to obey, and he would be punished if he didn’t. On the other side, his hand didn’t move to grab his wand, standing motionless by his side.

“Get up and leave. And I’m not saying to leave this forest, but to leave this war.” He took two steps back, partially hiding himself in the forest again. They both had heard the same noise: footsteps approaching them. “Leave before you get yourself killed—because it’ll happen. Now or later, it will.”

Before Sehun had the chance to answer him, Jongin was already gone. He had to put some distance between them before apparating, or the noise would give him away. And before Sehun could think about running after him, two strong pairs of arms encircled his shoulders, and Chanyeol’s voice was all he could hear.

“Sehun! We were so worried. Jongdae and I found each other by accident, but we looked around for two hours and there was no sign of you. So we had to get out of the forest, apparate to the Order headquarters and ask for help.”

“Luckily Minseok was there,” Jongdae said against his shoulder before letting go of him. “He’s better than us with, you know, navigating magic spaces that want to kill you.”

Shaking himself out of his stupor, he turned his head back to see Minseok standing against a nearby tree. “Thanks, Minseok. These two wouldn’t find me even if I had a flare gun.”

“Everything for my favorite dongsaeng,” he said, smiling while Chanyeol faked a laugh and said _very funny, Sehun_. “Are you all ready to go back to the headquarters? Shacklebolt will want a hell of a report.”

No one cheered, but they stood up and got ready to get out of that place. “Sehun, are you sure you can apparate alone? Hold my hand if you need to.” Without giving him time to answer, Chanyeol held their hands together, intertwining their fingers.

“Thanks, Chanyeol,” Sehun said, a smile making its way into his face as the sudden sensation of apparating took over the four of them. He was glad that no one asked him what had happened, or why he looked so pale. They probably thought that, after laying in the snow for almost three hours, Sehun surely wouldn’t look fine.

And the longest he could hold off the information about his encounter with Jongin, the better. He still needed time to think about all that was said and all that was _not_ said, especially about the reason Jongin didn’t just kill him right on the spot, when he had all chances to.

He needed to know if Jongin had truly changed so irrevocably that he was now beyond any salvation, or if there was still a part of the boy he once cherished and loved like no one else in the world — because in that moment, all that boy had left him with were his shattered hopes.

 _See you soon, Sehun!_ He had said, that day in the platform, two years before. _Don’t forget our date!_

 _It was you who forgot it,_ Sehun wanted to tell him. Oh, how he wished he could go back to the time where his biggest problems were what to wear to his date or how to sneak out to parties without his parents noticing. Where everything was so undeniably _simple_.

In that moment, if there was some word that could define the complete opposite of his life, it would be that one. Simple.

 

* * *

 

> **xx.** the judgement
> 
> — _september 31th, 1998_

 

He should have seen it coming. In fact, he _did_ , but instead of taking an action to stop it all before it was too late, he let the river flow its natural course. At the end, all lost things seemed to drift down to the sea, and so did he.

(and maybe it was time to just sit and watch what life had planned for him)

It was the first time he had left Jongin alone at home. And although “alone” would not be the right word for the case, Sehun wondered if it wouldn’t be better if he was, truly.

The first time Jongdae and Junmyeon asked to come and visit him, Sehun denied their request, making up some obvious excuse. They never complained, because it wasn’t Sehun who they wanted to visit — not that they didn’t want to visit him, but Sehun wasn’t their priority in that moment —, it was their cousin, Jongin.

It was only after Sehun deemed Jongin fully capable of listening to his cousins without crying, at best, or picking up a fight, at worst, that he gave them permission to come over and talk to him. He even came up with an excuse to go to the supermarket and leave them alone—they had a long list of things to discuss, and Sehun didn't want them to think he was meddling with their personal lives. Even the most innocent action could bother a pureblood family.

Shacklebolt would throw a fit if he knew. But he would also throw a fit if he knew Sehun dragged Jongin over to a movie theater, so these happenings were better left unsaid.

He was drinking whatever was left of his chocolate-flavored bubble tea when a familiar ping brought him back to whatever was happening in front of him, not between the walls of his flat. The screen of his phone light up to warn him of a new message from Jongin—who _still_ couldn’t make calls without getting insecure if he was doing the right thing. It wasn’t like he had ever needed it before, either way.

Sehun smiled, remembering Jongin’s misadventures with technology. In the last four months, he picked up a lot of things, but some, like the internet and computers in general, still scared — and marveled — him.

He tossed the empty cup in the trash on his way home. Sehun couldn’t pick up how things went between him and his cousins by the tone of the message, which made him start to worry. Jongin was a fan of using exclamation points whenever he could.

His front door waited for him unlocked. His eyes quickly scanned the place, landing onto the image of Jongin sprawled on the ground, holding a piece of paper in one hand. Coming closer, Sehun didn’t think he looked sad, overall. He sported a sort of peaceful expression, but knowing how Jongin learned to control his emotions in the past years, that could mean anything.

Sehun was dying to know what happened, but kept his mouth shut as he stepped over Jongin on his way to the kitchen. He was putting the groceries in their cabinets when Jongin’s voice called his attention.

“Sehun, did you get my yogurt?” he asked. Usually he would help Sehun organize everything, but this time he did not move from where he was laying.

“Yes. And your fancy chocolate parfait ice cream.” Jongin still maintained his rich person tastes, and he liked when Sehun complied to them, which happened more often than not. “Oh, the almond-flavored milk was out of stock this time.”

“Why didn’t you bought the chocolate one then?”

“You know why,” Sehun said, when he finished. “Last time we bought it, I had to throw it away because you let it go stale.”

He walked back into the living room to see that Jongin had, in fact, moved. He was now facing Sehun, mouth turned into a pout. “You’re so boring, Sehun.”

“And you’re lazy,” he retorted, which only made Jongin’s pout grow bigger. He was unbelievably cute like that, but Sehun would rather die before telling him. “You didn’t even help me out with the groceries.”

He didn’t answer. When Sehun huffed and stepped over him again on his way to the sofa — straying a little from the shortest path —, however, he quickly held him by his ankle. “Where are you going? Don’t you wanna know what happened while you were _not_ buying me chocolate milk?”

Now, _that_ was something Sehun undoubtedly wanted to know.

“Come on, I know you want to,” he continued, lightly pulling Sehun down by his ankle. “Sit down here, my head hurts from being on the floor all this time.”

Sehun scoffed, but did as he was told. As soon as he extended his legs, Jongin’s head was on them, brown hair stark against the white jeans. Without thinking, he caressed his forehead, moving away the few strands that were too close to his eyes.

With the late afternoon sun rays beating upon them, the scene looked freshly cut out of some romantic movie, and Sehun could almost believe they were still in school, skipping Charms in the astronomy tower, when their biggest worry were the papers due to next week.

Sehun had been losing himself in those memories more and more, every day.

“Sorry. It’s not that I don’t care about it. I just didn’t want you to think I’m intruding in your life or something,” he said, observing how Jongin’s features relaxed every time he stroked his temple. “And I figured that if something bad happened, Jongdae or Junmyeon would tell me afterwards.”

“They would, right? You know, they wanted you to be here so they could thank you for helping me and all that. But I told them you wanted to give us privacy,” Jongin told him, eyes closed. “And it wasn’t bad, overall. It could have been better but it could have been a lot worse. Considering the whole situation, I was expecting the worse. Junmyeon hyung was always the nicest of us, though, so I guess that counted to something.”

Sehun nodded. Junmyeon was the closest to a leader they had in school days. Even when he had already graduated, he still sent everyone letters asking how they were, and reminding them to turn in their assignments. Sehun remembered how he thought about Junmyeon’s disapproving stare every hour he spent lazing off beside the lake instead of doing homework.

“I mean, in the beginning they were pretty let down about the whole thing, but I expected it, so it didn’t affect me that much? What surprised me is that I thought they would come here, give me a lecture and then say goodbye, but they let me talk. And they genuinely heard me, and accepted what I said. Doesn’t mean they _liked it_ , you know, but just being able to speak without them saying it was all bullshit? It was great.” Sehun kept quiet while he spoke, refraining himself even from humming in agreement, afraid of creating a distraction. “I guess that’s because we’re all from the same family and they know how things work between us, they understood why I did what I did. I mean, if you think about it from my family’s perspective, they were the real traitors. Almost everyone supported Voldemort, some more openly than others. Like me.”

He sighed and opened his eyes. “I’m not using that as an excuse. Ok, maybe a little. But I know it’s not their fault only. And I saw that, and I asked them forgiveness, and they gave it to me. It’s a slow process, of course, and I don’t expect them to suddenly forget the things I’ve done, but. You know. We’re getting there.”

Sehun nodded and kept mute. It was only when he noticed Jongin staring back at him, curious, that he decided to speak. “I’m really happy that things turned out good for all of you. I kinda expected it to go that way, because before letting Junmyeon and Jongdae come here, I didn’t only see if you were prepared to talk, but also if they were prepared to listen.” He remembered long phone calls filled with subtle questions. It was a good thing that Junmyeon was fascinated with muggle technology. “But even after planning everything, there was no way to know how it’ll flow in the real world. So, I’m glad it turned out alright.”

Jongin smiled smugly, the proud thing that he was, and snuggled against Sehun’s belly—who had trouble containing the butterflies that flew wildly within the walls of his stomach and threatened to spill through his mouth.

“So, what’s this on your hand?” he asked, trying to concentrate in something that was not how nice Jongin’s head felt against his thigh, how nostalgic and how new at the same time.

“Oh, it’s a letter,” Jongin answered him, bringing the paper close to his eyes. It was open—he must have read it between his cousins’ exit and Sehun’s arrival. “From Minseok hyung. Junmyeon told me he wanted to come, but he didn’t trust himself to not lash out at me, so he sent me this.”

He offered the letter to Sehun, who took it with trembling fingers, but didn't open it. He knew very well how much of his feelings Minseok must have poured into those words. After all, he was the one who spent weeks glued to Minseok’s side, both of them trying the fill the void Luhan’s death left wide open, a black hole wanting to suck them in.

Sehun lost one of his best friends in the war. Minseok lost his fiancé.

“I wouldn't trust myself to be close to you too, if I was him.”

“I know, right?” Jongin said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I thought he hated me. He should.”

“Well, I don’t want to sound like I know exactly what Minseok is going through, because I don’t, but maybe he’s just tired. Of fighting and hating. I don’t think we have the strength to be angry anymore. Most of us just want to pretend the war didn’t happen at all.”

Jongin nodded and pulled himself straight, close enough for Sehun to feel the warmth radiating from him. The lack of personal space didn’t seem to faze Jongin. In fact, he was getting gradually closer, until their foreheads almost touched. “Do you? Want to pretend that it didn’t happen and, like, go back to how things were before?”

“Yes, but—”

“You remember one night, I think it was in May, when I was stuck in the infirmary because I had hurt my arm in the last quidditch match, just like the day we met? And you had this really big DADA’ essay on the day after, so you smuggled like, five books under your coat and stayed up until 4am by my side until you finished it while I was awake all the time helping you find something useful in those books with only one good arm?”

“I do. I got an _Outstanding_ on that one.” Of course he remembered. How could he forget the many sleepless nights in his seventh year, with the ever present shadow of the N.E.W.T.s and the hundreds of pages of assignments following him everywhere? “I do, but listen—”

“Don't you wish you could go back to that day?” he asked, and Sehun could see the hope shining in his eyes, spilling with every word pronounced. “Don't you wish you could go back to a time when you were happier? When we were happier?”

 _Together_ , he left unsaid, but Sehun didn't need to hear it to know it was there—almost palpable in the air, just waiting for Sehun to acknowledge it. His heartbeat was like a wild animal, caged in what little space was between his ribs, fearful, but oh so hopeful. It was a big leap, and maybe he still wasn’t ready to take it. None of them were. But that seemed like an insignificant thing before what was waiting for them, only a step away. Jongin inched his head closer to Sehun until their noses brushed against each other. In his peripheral vision, Sehun could see his hands trembling, and perceived his own were in the same state.

There was still a chance to turn back. Jongin stayed firmly where he was, giving Sehun the one final word, for better or worse—even though he hadn’t any idea about which outcome was the best and which was the worst. It was hard to think when Jongin was so close to him, in the same position they stood years before; younger and fresher and brighter and better.

Every action has its consequences, and he knew he would have to deal with them later, preferably with a clear head and not with his nose filled with Jongin’s smell, tempting him to come closer and closer.

Before deciding, however, he needed to clear something with Jongin.

“It doesn’t matter how much I want to go back to the past, I can’t, Jongin,” he said. Almost instantly, Jongin’s eyes widened and he started to back out, but Sehun quickly brought a hand to his neck, stopping the movement. “But we don’t need to turn back to old memories. We can just make new ones.”

Jongin opened his mouth to speak, but closed it as he saw Sehun tilting his head to the right, adjusting the angle before closing his eyes and pressing their lips together—featherlight pressure until Jongin opened his lips, beckoning him closer. His hands found their place in Sehun’s waist, touching it reverently, as if afraid another war might come between them.

Sehun let himself melt, slipping his tongue in Jongin’s mouth as the other did the same—softly, slowly. A movie in slow motion, love in three acts. For once in a long time, his mind was blissfully and blessedly blank, and his whole body tingled with the promise of something new, something good.

He might have regretted it later, but in that moment there wasn’t anything else Sehun could have done, no reaction his heart might have had besides that one.

It was only when the burning in his lungs became unbearable that he broke the kiss, letting air fill his chest again. Jongin’s lips still chased his, giving him one last and quick kiss before he put a minimum of distance between them—enough for them to look at each other in the eyes, but not so that they couldn’t quickly go back to where they were.  

“Are you good?” Jongin asked, and Sehun could see how he was trying so hard to not let himself smile, not so fast, as if there was still a chance Sehun might turn back from this.

“Yes,” he nodded, tracing Jongin’s cupid bow with his thumb to engrave the feeling in his mind one more time. “And you?”

“Yeah,” Jongin answered, and dived for Sehun’s lips again.

This time, it was even slower. No tongue, just lips pressed against lips, a hand caressing Sehun’s nape like it was porcelain-made, precious and fragile. Sehun expected to feel like a seventeen year old teenager again, but it was anything but that. It was like finding an old childhood toy and looking at it from another angle, letting the light illuminate all its flaws, the scratches and the missing parts, and still finding it somehow exceptionally beautiful—like pottery repaired with powdered gold, precious in its own way.

They may not be the same young and carefree boys from before, but they were older now, and wiser, and maybe, with a lot of hope and a bit of help, they could make it work.

Sehun swiftly snuggled against Jongin’s neck when the kiss ended, which prompted a laugh alongside the feeling of fingers threading themselves in his hair. He wanted to tell him about their positions being the opposite of when they started talking, but he found his throat heavy with tears wanting to come out. Sehun closed his eyes and breathed deeply, filling his nostrils with Jongin’s scent to calm himself.

“Hey, it’s all going to be fine,” Jongin said, kissing the top of his head like one might do with a crying baby. That only made the tears come stronger. “We’re going to be fine.”

“I know,” Sehun said, voice cracking at the end of the sentence. “I know.”

He didn’t knew, not truly, but in that moment, there was no doubt that could have make home within his hummingbird heart.

 

* * *

 

> **ix.** nine of swords
> 
> — _october 17th, 1998_

 

They changed — or tried to change — everything they could, hoping that by making things follow a different course, the end of their relationship would also change—or better, would never come. Adrenaline infused kisses in dark hallways after curfew were exchanged by cuddling late at morning on weekends, when none of them had energy to get out of the bed. Boisterous laughing gave away space for soft smiles, and their favorite place to be switched from the greenhouses to Sehun’s battered, two seats sofa.

They also decided to keep it as a secret for the time being, aware of all the backslash that might accompany Sehun if word flew that he was dating a former death eater—even if they were still in a very fragile, very experimental step of the whole romantic relationship thing. Sehun himself still wasn’t ready to tell his family and friends that, yes, he was dating someone who actively tried to kill half of his relatives, and yes, he was a hundred percent sure of what he was doing.

(he wasn’t)

But there were other things that not even the greatest efforts could change, like how Jongin’s hands found themselves always in contact with Sehun’s waist, or how Sehun’s head was always the most comfortable when nestled in the juncture of Jongin’s neck and shoulders. It would be pointless to change this, what made their relationship truly theirs—the little mechanics of how they walked and talked around each other, how Sehun’s smile came easier to his lips when Jongin dozed off in the middle of a movie, snuggled against his chest.

It was almost perfect, but Sehun knew their differences wouldn’t let it stay that way for long. One day they would threaten to break again, and Sehun would have to choose between rebuilding the future or letting the past go. He could only hope that, when the moment came, he knew what path he should take. It was a better option than losing his head while he thought about it.

Still, the inevitability of it was making him increasingly restless, and Jongin was quick to notice something was wrong.

“Hey, Sehun, are you listening?” he asked, after his second question left unanswered. His tone was light, like he was almost having fun at the expense of Sehun’s distraction, but the worry under it was clear.

Sehun looked up from the pile of work he brought home and sighed. “Sorry, I guess I was just thinking about something else.”

“Uh. Well, tell me.” He adjusted himself in the sofa, getting more comfortable in the same way someone who knows a long story is about to come does. It was slightly disconcerting how they were attuned to each other after three years of being sworn enemies. “What could be more important than hearing me ramble about all the interesting things I did while you were at work?”

Sehun gulped. The mere idea of sharing his worries with Jongin turned his stomach into a tight knot. It was something to joke about his doubts over his fellow workers reaction’s when the news broke out, but it was something completely different to talk about his insecurities about them—as a functional and healthy couple that would not shatter before their first obstacle; or as an already doomed tentative of reviving the past. Sehun hoped for the first, but he would not let himself be deluded into thinking the last wasn’t a real, and very plausible, possibility.

“It’s nothing important, just work things” he lied, but the look on Jongin’s eyes let it clear that Sehun would have to try harder if he wanted to fool him. Curse this kinda wretched soulmate thing Sehun believed they had. “Uh, so, I just saw dad yesterday after work and we were talking about everything, you know. He’s really trying to be… understanding about you, and that’s great, but— I was replaying the conversation in my head while coming home, and I had this, well I guess you can say it’s kind of a realization, that besides seeing Junmyeon and Jongdae that day, you didn’t have any sort of contact with your family since you’ve been here. Which is five months, give or take.”

Jongin’s expression turned sullen in seconds. “And?”

“And… I was just wondering if I should have asked if you wanted to send them a letter or something? Since you can’t go out without me, and you can’t talk to them by any magical means. It was really shitty of me to forget about this.”

“It wasn’t. Don’t sweat about it, Sehun.” Jongin licked his lips before continuing, eyes fixed on the papers scattered on the table. One of them should be another of Sehun’s reports on his _progress_. “It’s not like they would want to talk to me if they knew I’ve been living with a halfblood. Doesn’t matter that it’s their fault that I dived into the death eater mess, in the first place.”

“I thought it was your choice, in the end,” Sehun said, treading cautiously over tumultuous water. “It’s not like they could have forced you into it.”

The way Jongin _tsked_ after hearing that sent a shiver down Sehun’s spine. “You really don’t know how pureblood families work if you think like that, especially the real old and, well, bad ones.” He said _bad_ like they weren’t bad, not really. It was Sehun that was much of a halfblood to understand. “Of course they didn’t _physically_ force me to follow Voldemort, but the psychological pressure was ten times worse. Minseok, Junmyeon and Jongdae had all ran away to the Order, and I was the only one left with all those people whispering behind my back, saying I would betray them like my cousins did. My father ordered the house elves to follow me around the house all day, so that I couldn’t communicate with anyone they didn’t find _suitable_. They didn’t even try to be subtle.”

He stroked a piece of skin in the inside of his arm, right above his wrist, where Sehun knew his dark mark was—faint to the point it was almost invisible to the untrained eye, but there still. More than a few times, Sehun glanced at Jongin only to see him scratching the place, as if he wanted to extract the ink with his nails, to no avail. There was no way known of removing a dark mark.

“And that wasn’t the worst thing. No, the worst was suddenly having all of the family expectations put on my shoulders,” he continued, and his eyes grew distant while he brought back the memories of years before. “It’s different, with families like mine. Bloodline, tradition, legacy: these are the things my relatives hold dear. Nor what I wanted to do. When my cousins left, I became their salvation. Everyone in that house looked at me like I would plunge them all into the dirt if didn’t become a death eater, so I did. Even though I didn’t want to. Even though I hated every second of it. They didn’t care about that—as long as the family name was safe, they were happy. And I was supposed to be happy, too.”

Silence took over the room. Jongin refused to take his eyes away from the window, and Sehun didn’t raise his head from the papers, trying to absorb everything he had heard. Some of it he expected already, but he never thought Jongin would tell him everything in an outburst like that, like he was waiting for the perfect opportunity to get that out of his chest, to bury Sehun under so many things he didn't dare to think about.

Worse yet was for him to believe Sehun was naive to the point he didn't have a clue about how these kind of families worked, as if Sehun hadn't fought them for almost two years, as if they hadn't been his worst enemies alongside the Dark Lord himself. But of course he would say that. After all, how could Sehun, with his half-muggle blood, understand what the heir of the Kim family was talking about?

No matter how many wars they must fight; people like him would always be looked down upon. And the ones that looked down on them would always say they were innocent, blaming the world for their bigotry, just like Jongin did.

And Sehun was tired of that.

“Are you saying you became a death eater because your family wished so?” he asked. It was a big effort to not just throw everything in front of him at Jongin’s face, but he had to manage it if he wanted answers.

“Yes.”

“And that if they didn’t _force_ you into it, you would’ve fought against the death eaters, like your cousins did?”

“Yeah… Well, I don’t know about the fighting part, to be honest. But I would never have joined Voldemort if it weren’t for them, I’m sure of this,” he answered, his tone getting more curious and even doubtful as he watched Sehun’s expression change. “Why are you looking at me as if it’s something bad?”

This. This was it. Sehun didn’t know if Jongin was so naive to believe in what he was saying, or if he thought so highly of himself that he truly believed Sehun would fall for his lies. Either way, Sehun could not take it anymore.

(he was so dumb to even consider the possibility of—)

“ _Why?_ I don’t think you can hear yourself, or else you would be ashamed of how ridiculous you sound”, he spat, voice full of venom—and other things too; disbelief, disappointment, and a drop of his own misery. “Poor Jongin, his mama made him become a death eater. God, how can you think I can be so stupid as to believe this bullshit?”

He didn’t notice he was shouting until it was too late, and then Jongin was shouting back at him, and the papers were on the floor and at some point, both of them had stood up—Sehun didn’t notice it too. He didn’t notice because he was a mess, and Jongin was also a mess, and everything… He didn’t want to think about what everything was in that moment.

“I don’t care if you think it’s bullshit or not, it’s what happened! Sorry if I can’t comply with your redemption fantasy or whatever you imagined when you made all that fuss in the trial!” He was mad, too, and Sehun could see that clearly in the way his fists were clenched to the point his knuckles had become white. If Sehun wanted to throw the coffee table at Jongin, Jongin surely looked like someone who would gladly do the same. “Just confess you wanted to bring the villain home so that you could heal him with love and whatever else and then tell everyone about how _good_ you are, how _caring_.”

He wanted a fight. Sehun could give him that.

“Fuck you, Jongin. I did what I did because I couldn’t live with myself if I let you rot in that godforsaken island. I did it because I like you, and I knew there was still a piece of the Jongin I knew before, or else you wouldn’t have saved me back in that day.” _Do you even know about what day I’m talking about, Jongin?_ Sehun suddenly felt the need to ask, before the question slipped against his will. _Did it mean something to you as it did for me?_ “I didn’t have any redemption fantasies, I just wanted to forgive you and live on, but guess what? You can’t even admit what you did! You blame your mother and your father and your cousins, but there’s no one more guilty in this whole story than yourself!”

Sehun thought Jongin was going to shout back, but he only grimaced at him, the smile of someone who already knew what was going to happen, but couldn't hide his disappointment.

“Pick up this fucking report and write it, then.” He pointed to one of the papers now on the floor, the one he noticed Sehun was always sneaking glances at, before. “Tell Shacklebolt that you're stupid and that this was your biggest mistake. Tell him you're tired of pretending you can save me from whatever you think I need to be saved from.”

Sehun didn't answer him, not yet, not with the feeling that his head might implode at any moment.

“Come on! Tell him to send me in the next boat to Azkaban. Anything is better than living here with you acting like some fucking saint—”

“Maybe I should! Shacklebolt would surely like it. Hell, everyone would! ‘Cause I was the only one that trusted you and guess what, Jongin?” Sehun screamed at him, face red and fists clenched. He didn't remember a time when he had been so angry before. “There is not one person in the world that you can't let down. Because that's how you are, and I was a fool to think otherwise.”

He shook his head repeatedly, trying to clear his thoughts before saying something he might regret. Jongin wasn't looking at him, but he didn't care—the last thing he wanted was to hear his voice and continue with that senseless fight, when clearly both of them would get nowhere.

“I'll… clear my head for a bit. I don't know.” He didn't bother to clean up the mess of papers in the floor before taking the long strides to the door. One more minute together and they would be at each other's throats. “Just don't break anything.”

“Tell him,” Jongin said when Sehun was almost out. He was sitting hunched in the sofa’s armrest, covering half of his face with his hand. “I was serious. Do it.”

Sehun left him without an answer as he locked the door. He wanted to say that he would do it, that it was what Jongin deserved, but he was tired of lying to everyone, and mostly, to himself.

He didn't know where to go, but that didn't matter then. First he needed to get away from Jongin, and only after that he would think about what to do.

Of one thing he was certain: there would be no mention of that day in his reports, no phrase or word that might arouse doubt in Shacklebolt's mind. Jongin became his responsibility and he would follow through until the end, even if it drove him crazy. Even if it broke his heart. He might say whatever he wanted and blame whoever he thought was to blame—as long as they both lived, Sehun wouldn't give up on him, not even if Jongin himself asked for it.

He just needed time to understand what that meant. Time to let him choose. Rebuild it, or let it go.

 

* * *

 

> **vi.** the lovers
> 
> — _october 17th, 1988_

 

It was late when Sehun came home. All the lights inside the building were turned off, and he was forced to whisper a quick _lumos_ to find the right door to his house. There was nothing he could hear beside the rain falling outside and his own breathing, nothing he could feel beside the lightheadedness that clouded his mind.

(after all, he still hadn’t chosen)

He turned the doorknob expecting to find the house in shambles, or at least as much destruction as one could make with only two hands and no ounce of magic, but everything was in it’s right place—even the papers that he had dropped in his anger were neatly stacked in two piles, one for complete investigations and the other for the ones still in progress. Next to them, there was a single sheet of paper with the date and the words _weekly report on prisoner #47, Kim Jongin._

The house had only been so quiet once, when Jongin was still buried deep in his shell and refused to leave his room. The last thing he wanted with their argument was for him to close himself again, getting them both back to square one. Sehun looked around the place, searching for anything else worthy of attention, and glimpsed at light coming from under the door to his room, at the end of the hallaway.

His steps were soft over the wood while he wondered why Jongin chose to stay in that room, and not on his own. Perhaps the fight had the opposite effect Sehun was thinking, and instead of locking himself, Jongin wanted a confrontation, and for that he stayed in the place he knew Sehun would have to come back to. The other option, although being the one Sehun wished it wasn’t true, was considerably more probable: perhaps Jongin simply thought Sehun wouldn’t come back until the next day, at least, and choose his room to sleep, already used to it after their seventeen days together.

The Jongin he found after opening the door, however, had his whole face covered by an open book Sehun remembered seeing him with it way back, in his first days of “freedom”. Sehun couldn’t see his expression, but since he didn’t give any sign of surprise, it was obvious that he was waiting for Sehun to return. In fact, Jongin didn’t gave signs of anything—he kept on reading like there wasn’t a slightly wet and increasingly offended Sehun right in front of him.

“Jongin?” he called, taking the initiative, as he always did, of course, because Jongin was incapable of taking the first step to anything that revolved around him admitting his mistakes. “Jongin, are you listening to me?”

It was in vain—talking to a wall would’ve been more productive. And Sehun wouldn’t stay there, waiting for Jongin to lick up his wounds and gather the courage to look at him in the eyes. He could have easily hidden himself in his room, but he didn’t. Jongin wanted a confrontation; he _asked_ for it with his feigned ignorance, and Sehun would give it to him, then. Anything would be better than the middle ground they were standing upon.

He crossed the distance to the bed in four quick strides, stopping right beside the book Jongin held in his lap. Still being ignored, Sehun changed his tactic to something more straightforward, throwing one leg over Jongin’s body and quickly sitting down on his lap while he ripped the book from his hand and threw it on the other side of the room.

And finally Jongin looked at him.

“What are you doing?” he asked, completely bewildered.

“What are _you_ doing, in my bed, pretending that you didn’t hear me coming home or getting in this room, huh?” He let his hands rest on Jongin’s shoulders, looking at him straight from above. “Or you’re thinking I’m gonna fall for this shitty act?”

“I’m not acting, I was just trying to read the goddamn book. You really think the world revolves around you, ain’t it?”

Sehun wanted so much to just punch him in the face. But he couldn’t, so he did the second thing he wanted most — and the one that he _could_ do, but he really _shouldn’t_ —, and kissed him.

It wasn’t nice. Their teeth clashed at first and the angle hurt Sehun’s neck, but then, it wasn’t supposed to be nice. Sehun didn’t have space in his mind for the slow caresses and languid kisses of the last two weeks, and neither did Jongin—they were both furious, and there were only two ways of burning that anger out.

Jongin bit his lip hard enough to draw blood and seized the moment when Sehun broke the kiss and hissed in pain to take his own shirt off.

“You hurt me, jackass,” Sehun said. The finger that reached up to touch his bottom lip came smeared with his own blood, but the pain he felt was close to none. It would be safer to say he was more taken aback by Jongin’s sudden surge of attitude than properly hurt.

“Yeah, yeah. I think you can take a little pain.” He held Sehun’s waist with one arm and used to other to change their positions, throwing Sehun on the bed as he hovered over him, all wicked eyes and smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t kill you. I didn’t do it before, right?”

Sehun held his tongue from answering, and instead raised his arms so Jongin could take his shirt off too. His skin felt hot wherever Jongin touched him, from his navel to the jutting of his clavicle, but mostly in his thighs, where he could feel Jongin’s hardness even through two layers of jeans. He fought the urge to close his eyes and watched as Jongin nibbled his torso, leaving red marks all over his chest and belly in the descent, going as far as the fabric of Sehun’s pants allowed him.

He made quick work of the button, and even before he started to pull the jeans off, Sehun had already raised his hips, letting impatience get the upper hand of him. His boxers also were pulled down, and before he could stop and think about the situation, Jongin’s warm breath fanned over the head of his cock, making him twitch.

Sehun looked down and found Jongin staring right back at him, the lust in his eyes almost as palpable as the smirk gracing his lips.

“I told you to relax, didn’t I?” he asked. His lips grazed against Sehun’s erection as he spoke, making difficult for him to keep his hips still. He didn’t want Jongin to see how easily he could make a mess of him, not so early. “I won’t bite you here.”

Jongin licked a stripe from the base to the crown before taking Sehun’s cock in his mouth right away. He sucked hard on the head before taking the length inside, letting it rest against the flat of his tongue as he bobbed his head up and down, cheeks hollowed and lips stretched. Sehun couldn’t hold back the string of gasps that fell through his lips when the hand that wasn’t keeping his hips in place started to play with his balls, nor refrain himself from moaning loudly when one of its fingers ventured lower, slipping past his asscheks to graze against his entrance.

If Jongin’s mouth wasn’t full of cock, he would surely be smirking.

“Stop,” Sehun pleaded, when Jongin changed his strategy from sucking until where he could reach and started licking the head, dipping the tip of his tongue into the slit. “Stop, or I will—”

He couldn’t finish before Jongin moved his mouth from his cock to his thighs, where he proceed to bite the supple flesh before him, milky white skin where his leg ended and his ass began. It wasn’t long before Sehun nudged him with his feet, and, albeit unwilling, he went for the drawer where they kept the lube.

Sehun tried to control his breathing, focusing on the sound of Jongin searching through the drawer or the white color of the ceiling—anything other than the burning patches of skin where Jongin’s mouth marked him, spreading heat through his body like wildfire. He needed to get hold of himself again, but Merlin, it was so tough as he watched Jongin shrug off of his pants and off his boxers at once, his cock dark and erect against his belly, smearing the skin with precum to the point Sehun wanted to crawl over there and lick it.

He wrapped his hand around his cock in a loose circle and jerked himself agonizingly slowly when Jongin came to sit between his legs, fingers glistening with a thin layer of lube. He circled around Sehun’s rim one, two times before Sehun was begging him stop teasing.

The first two fingers slipped into his entrance without resistance. Sehun let his head hang back, fucking himself on Jongin’s hand and trying to get him to reach his prostate—but Jongin dodged it every single time, delighting himself on the little mewling sounds that escaped Sehun’s lips, the stuttered breaths and moans he let past, canting his hips down harder on the fingers that leisurely scissored his walls.

“You don’t even need this, do you?” Jongin said, nipping Sehun’s thigh again as he finally— _finally_ —let his fingers brush against Sehun’s prostate, ripping out a choked moan from his throat. “You just want a cock buried in you, right, Sehun?”

“Quit this shit and fuck me already,” Sehun whimpered, stilling his hips with a half-drawn breath. He hooked one of his legs around Jongin’s waist, bringing him closer until he felt the head of his cock slipping past his entrance. This time, it was Jongin who cursed under his breath.

Jongin quickly held him by the hips and turned him around, leaving Sehun face down on the pillows. “On your knees,” he grunted. Sehun complied, ass sticked out and thighs trembling as Jongin stroked them from the knee up until the curve of his ass, biting it one last time before he positioned his cock against Sehun.

Sehun’s whole body shivered when Jongin breached him with one swift stroke, stopping only when he was balls deep inside. Sehun wanted to see him come undone, too—wanted to see his chest glistening with sweat, his furrowed brows as he focused on searching for his prostate, the muscles of his biceps trembling with the effort of holding Sehun’s hips down. But he couldn’t, not when Jongin drived into him with such force that made him fist the sheet until his knuckles turned white, and the pillow under him muffled his moans and curses.

“Oh, fuck!” he cried out when Jongin brushed against his prostate. Pleasure sparked through his body, and he let out an incoherent string of whimpers as Jongin hit the same spot again and again. “Harder!”

The next thrust would have made him fall if he wasn’t already gripping the bedsheets as tightly as he could. Jongin grunted behind him, and his breath stuttered as he put all his strength into fucking Sehun. “Touch yourself,” he said, using one hand to pull Sehun by the hair so that he could hear him clearly. “Come for me.”

Five jerks of his fist had Sehun’s body tensing the pleasure rippled through his every nerve, releasing him like a tight coiled rope. His mind cleared off just in time for him to hear Jongin’s last moan as he came, emptying himself inside of Sehun. He pulled out and let his body fall beside Sehun, breath heavy and legs trembling.

Laying like that, with his eyes closed and already starting to doze off, he was nothing like the man Sehun had seen that afternoon, but he also wasn’t the man Sehun met in the hallways of Hogwarts, so many years before. He had changed—once, and then anew, the same way Sehun had changed without even knowing he did. He was another Jongin just as Sehun was another Sehun, and they needed to find each other out, explore the corners of their lips and the depths of their minds as the Sehun and Jongin of before did.

Sehun opened his mouth to say that out loud, but the soft snores that reached his ears stopped him. He turned around, facing Jongin, and yielding to the weight that pulled his eyelids down, let his mouth curve in the smallest of smiles before he fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

> **iii.** three of swords [reversed]
> 
> — _october 18th, 1998_

 

Sehun woke up way before he expected.

The bed table clock marked 3am when he first opened his eyes, and at almost 4am he still couldn't get back to sleep. His skin itched in the places Jongin had bit him, and he felt dirty with all the come and lube sticking on his skin. Without making any noise — or at least that was what he thought — he walked over to the bathroom to clean himself, avoiding the mirror on his way in and out. He didn’t want to know how his face looked, nor if the purple marks on his torso outnumbered the red ones. That was something he would have to deal with, but not in that moment. _Later_ , he promised himself.

After deciding against a sleeping pill, Sehun made his way back to the covers, only to find a pair of half-lidded eyes staring right back at him.

“Couldn’t sleep?” he asked in a whisper. Jongin usually was pretty unresponsive right after waking up, so Sehun was expecting him to go back to sleep without answering, and not shaking his head in agreement. “Me too.”

“What time is it?”

“Uh, five minutes past four.” He felt a sharp pain coursing through his backside as he turned to look at the clock, and couldn’t help but wince. Jongin, the poor thing, looked like the human embodiment of guilt.

“Sorry,” he whispered. Sehun couldn’t very well see his eyes in that light, but he could bet an arm they would be looking down in shame.

“Hey, it’s okay. I asked you to fuck me, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but— I should have done it that hard.” He raised a hand to touch the bruises he left on Sehun’s chest, but faltered and retreated his arm, snuggling against the pillow as if it could hide his face. “Also sorry for biting you. In the butt.”

“Apology accepted,” Sehun said, trying to stifle his laughter and failing. It was 4am, they were both awake after a session of rough sex _after_ having a fight and there was Jongin, saying that he was sorry for having bitten his butt. It wasn’t funny, it was utterly ridiculous.

He hissed as the pain shot up again. This time, Jongin didn’t look ashamed nor guilty—in fact, he too laughed as Sehun’s face scrunched up, which earned him a kick in the shin under the covers. He quieted after that.

Silence covered them like a mother’s blanket, wrapping itself around the edges of the room until Sehun was almost sleeping again. His eyes were already closed when Jongin muttered something so low that he didn’t manage to make out the words.

“What?”

“I’m sorry for earlier.” Now that his eyes had gotten used to the dark, he could see the shape of Jongin laying on his back, eyes fixed on the ceiling like it somehow held all the answers he had been chasing. “You were right, I can’t blame my family for my mistakes; they’re mine. I was already an adult when I made them, and I’m an adult now, which means I’m old enough to acknowledge what I did and what that says about me, as a person. As much as I like to think I would’ve seen things in a different way if I had the same option now, what is done is done, and there’s no magic in the world that can change it. In the end, it was my choice to make. And I chose wrong.”

“But I wasn’t right,” Sehun said. He intertwined both their fingers under the covers. “I mean, yes, the decision was yours, but there’s no way you can overlook all the factors that shaped your decision. You’re not an island, Jongin. No one is. Of course that doesn’t excuse what you did—both your cousins were raised in a similar way to you, but in the end, they took a different route. But acting like the world you were in didn’t expect you to do exactly what you did? That you lived up to whatever people hoped you would do? It doesn’t make sense.”

Jongin opened his mouth to retort, but Sehun silenced him with a finger on his lips and went on. “There will always be people who will look down on you after what you did, people who will never fathom _why_ , but I want you to know that while it hurts me to know you did what you did, what matters to me now is what you _will_ do. That’s why I stood up against everyone in that courtroom, that’s why I brought you here. Because I know you, and I knew someday — maybe yesterday, maybe today, maybe next year — you would regret following this path you chose, and when that day happened, I didn’t want you to be locked in a cell in Azkaban, where the only thing left for you to do was to think about what could’ve been. I wanted you to be here, where you can look at the next day and hope to be a better person on the days that are yet to come. Tomorrow, Jongin. You can do it tomorrow.”

“I can do it tomorrow,” he whispered, and Sehun couldn’t exactly tell because of the dark, but it seemed to him that Jongin was crying. Or maybe he was the one crying—or both of them were. But it was okay. Jongin gripped his fingers with more force; not enough to hurt him like before, but to make him feel. To say _hey, I’m here_.

Sehun brought their hands against his mouth and pressed a kiss on the back of Jongin’s hand. _I know. I’m here, too_.

And lying together like this, naked and laughing on a half-made bed like there wasn’t anywhere else they would prefer to be, the world suddenly seemed good. Not great — not _yet_ —, but good. And it was okay. It was enough.

 

* * *

  

> **xvii.** the star
> 
> — _january 7th, 1999_

 

After seven months being prohibited from using any type of magic, Jongin was more than used to doing things the muggle way. Cleaning the dishes, sweeping the dust, making the bed—things he always had the house elves do for him at home, or that he could solve with a simple flourish of his wand. He was a creature of habit, and even after having received a letter from the Ministry of Magic a month ago with his old wand, a permission to exercise magic again and a statement that he was now a free man, he still found himself doing everything like the average human being did.

It felt nice, being average. Normal, if he could say so. Blend in within the crowd and make yourself just one beside millions—just a guy with his pretty share of bad decisions but a pretty share of good ones in the package, too, like everyone else. Indeed, there were times when that feeling was replaced by the forced loneliness that came with his past, especially when he’d dare roaming the narrow streets of magic London feeling a thousand eyes glued to the back of his neck, waiting for the moment when he would undoubtedly — _for them_ — turn his back on them once more.

Not everyone would forgive him, he learned. But what he also learned, later, was that he didn’t need the forgiveness of everyone, not when had Jongdae and Junmyeon laughing with him in their family dinners, not when he had Minseok’s hyung instincts kicking in and asking him if he was eating and sleeping well, when he was slowly connecting with some of his friends from school — Chanyeol, who gave him the tightest hug he ever received, Baekhyun, Kyungsoo, his best friend since the moment he stepped foot inside Hogwarts, and Yixing and Yifan and Zitao too. He had his mediwizard studies to focus on if he wanted to start working soon, he had the cute dog from the pet shop close to home he was set in adopting, and he had Sehun, at the end of day, with the cheeks and the chin and the mouth he delighted on kissing, with his soft voice and complaints about how much papers he had to sign these days and how little field jobs. Sehun, who didn’t mind when he zapped incessantly through the channels, searching for a movie to watch, and laughed every time he forgot to buy the most basic of things in the market, like rice or kitchen oil. _The only thing you seem incapable to forget is the damn chicken,_ he once said.

He knew he still had a long path to walk on, but now he didn’t shy away from it. Instead, he longed for it, for a time when he would feel more like himself than ever before, for a time when he could be whole again, not only in body, but in mind.

 _Baby steps, Jongin._ He reminded himself. _Baby steps_.

“Jongin, what’s taking you so long?” he heard Sehun shouting from where was, lying on the sofa with the remote on his lap. “If you don’t get your ass here right away we won’t finish the movie before lunch, and in case you forgot, we’re having lunch at Chanyeol’s today.”

“I’m going!” he shouted back, quickly tidying up the kitchen as best as he could. “I’ll just take the trash out, wait some five minutes.”

He went down the stairs as fast as he could, afraid that Sehun would start playing the movie without him—which had happened once. On his way back he checked their mailbox, finding more bills — there was no end to them — and that day’s edition of the Daily Prophet, and grabbed everything before taking the stairs up.

“Did you start it?” he asked as soon as he opened the door, only to find Sehun looking at him with feigned disbelief.

“I would never do that.”

“Last wednesday.” He put the mail on the coffee table and lied down on the sofa, letting his head fall on Sehun’s thighs. “What are you waiting for? Press play.”

But Sehun wasn’t worried with the time now that he had the newspaper to read. “Quiet. It’s my time to stall.”

“But I didn’t stall on purpose! I was trying to maintain this flat inhabitable, thank you.” He waited for Sehun’s retort, but the other was engrossed on whatever he was reading, eyes running through the lines without stopping to blink. In the position he was, Jongin couldn’t even try to sneak a peek at it. “What’s up? Something bad happened?”

“Did you read it? Or at least looked at the headlines?”

“No. Why?”

“Well then,” Sehun said, giving Jongin the fourth page of the newspaper. “Do it now.”

Jongin didn’t know what to expect when he started reading, but there wasn’t any chance he would foresee what was in front of his eyes.

If the big, bold letters could talk, they would be shouting at his face. _Romeo and Romeo? Love blooms between auror and former death eater._

“Oh god,” Jongin said.

The cringeworthy headline was followed by informations on their relationship since Jongin was formally released and they started going out together. _Divided by a war but brought together again by love: Kim Jongin, a former dark wizard, and Oh Sehun, one of the Ministry most outstanding aurors, have taken to roam the streets of muggle London together, often bumping shoulders and, why not?, holding each other’s hands._

If someone asked him later, Jongin would say he had no idea how he managed to get to the end of that article, having to read more than once the words _forbidden love_ and _the power of reconciliation_. It was full of mistakes—dates they didn’t have and a _declaration by one of their oldest friends_ made by someone none of them knew. Jongin wasn’t taken by surprise when he let his eyes wander back to the top of the page and found Rita Skeeter below the title.

“‘Is this the proof a better world is to come, a world where the past can be put behind us while he look up to the future? For Kim and Oh, it surely seems like it.’” He read the last line out loud, torn between being furious for having his life made a gossip column and being happy — radiant, in fact — with the overall uplifting tone of the whole thing, which focused much more in saying that he spent a long time under Sehun’s observation before the Ministry allowed him to have his freedom back, complete with an official pardon and the assurance that, for then, he was just one of the many wizards of England. “Does this means we’re celebrities now?”

“I swear to you, if I see _one_ paparazzi following me, I’m killing this woman,” Sehun said. When Jongin looked up, however, he found a smile threatening to split his boyfriend’s face in two. Similar to the one he was also sporting.

“Are you kidding me? I’m going to charge them ten quids for a picture and then I’ll quit mediwizard school and live with the money fame provided me.”

“Like hell I’m letting you do that.” Sehun took the newspaper from Jongin’s hands and threw it on the other side of the room. “Remember me to rip that page out before I throw it away.”

“Sure,” Jongin said. “I hope Chanyeol doesn’t read the Daily Prophet or lunch will be insufferable.”

“Fuck! We forgot the movie,” Sehun exclaimed, quickly picking the remote on his lap and pressing play. “Now be quiet, _Romeo_.”

“I won’t say a word, _Romeo_.”

The beginning of the movie was lost in between their laughter. Jongin asked him to start it again, but Sehun refused. It didn’t matter. With his head on Sehun’s lap and his mind high within the clouds, Jongin didn’t care about the movie, or lunch, or the newspaper.

Just the knowledge that he was Sehun’s Romeo as much as Sehun was his was enough to keep him sated, forever drunk on his little bubble of happiness.

**Author's Note:**

> complaint department @ [twitter](https://twitter.com/sekaix1ng)


End file.
